Life is a game of chance. Or that’s what I tell myself when I’m losing at my newest hobby, poker. Of course it’s a different story when I win the pot: then I chalk it up to skill. So it was crushing to hear an experienced player’s take when I fessed up to the fact I seem to do worse when I’m trying to play well. “That’s because no strategy is better than a bad strategy: it makes you harder to predict than a very basic game plan.” That’s me told.

This is partly what it is to be human. We like to attribute our successes to effort and talent, but when we fail it’s more comforting to blame bad luck. The more successful someone is, the more marked this tendency becomes and it has a knock-on impact on how we understand the world more generally.

Research published last week by the Fairness Foundation – whose advisory board I sit on – highlights that most people believe we live in a meritocracy, in which hard work is a much stronger determinant of outcomes in life than luck. The reality is very different: some estimates are that parental income alone explains around 40% of an individual’s earnings; add in other circumstantial factors and that figure is probably much higher.

This belief that success is generally associated with hard work may explain why, far from disliking the wealthy, people tend to admire them, unless they see their wealth as unearned. What’s interesting is that when asked about their own lives, many more people say that luck has had a net negative impact on their lives than a net positive one; perhaps a reflection of how pessimistic people are feeling........

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