[bozlax]

Now you're baiting me? "Oh, Brer Fox, pleeeease don't throw me in the briar patch!"

Good thing this is an easy one:

EV is concerned with long-term statistical results. Luck is concerned with short-term actual results. You're talking about luck, here, not EV.

Here's a story I like, tho, that illustrates BOTH points: I was checking into the MGM in Vegas about 8 years ago, right around the time all the casinos started putting those GIGANTIC slot machines right beside their registration desks. As I was waiting in line, I watched your typical-corn-farmer-from-Iowa-who-just-sold-his-spread-to-a-big-conglomerate-and-has-now-come-to-Vegas-with-the-wife-to-blow-his-profits-the-littluns-are-with-her-parents walk in all excited and get in line behind me. His wife (even more excited than he was) spotted the Big Spin machine and said, "Gimme a dollah, hunny, I'll be right back." She pops the dollar in the machine and pulls the lever.

Can you guess what happened? Yup, 7777, or whatever. Lights! Bells! Sirens! The whole works. She starts jumping around, screaming, he starts jumping around screaming, everybody in the near vacinity gathers around her to congratulate her...and nothing comes out. No coins, no slip of paper, nothing. By the time one of the floor attendants showed up, Mrs. Iowa was getting nervous, and you could see that Mr. Iowa was building up an "I haven't even checked in, yet, and y'all are already screwing me," tantrum.

Floor Attendant shows up, and Mrs. Iowa says, "I won this but it didn't give me anything!" Floor Attendant says, "Huh. How much money did you put in?" Mrs. Iowa says, "A dollar." Floor Attendant says, "Oh, I see. Look over here (at the rules posted RIGHT NEXT to the big arm of the machine)...it tells you here in 80-point bold letters that this machine only pays off in cash if you play $2 or more. Wow, and you hit the Big Spin Jackpot, too...that would've paid off 3 million to one." Mrs. Iowa stands there with her mouth open, and, iirc, Mr. Iowa actually started crying. Floor Attendant shrugged his shoulders, gave her $100 worth of chips and a bunch of meal comps and went off to attend to the remainder of his area of the floor.

The point is that Mrs. Iowa made two -EV decisions: one, she played a slot machine, and a promotional one at that with ridiculously long odds, and, two, she didn't bother to learn the rules before she played. In this case, making -EV decisions cancelled out short term luck. For fish playing poker, it often works the other way. That's the only relationship between the two things, however.