"The reference point argument is as follows: do not compute odds from the vantage point of the winning gambler (or the lucky Casanova, or the endlessly bouncing back New York City, or the invincible Carthage), but from all those who started in the cohort. Consider once again the example of the gambler. If you look at the population of beginning gamblers taken as a whole, you can be close to certain that one of them (but you do not know in advance which one) will show stellar results just by luck. So, from the reference point of the beginning cohort, this is not a big deal. But from the reference point of the winner (and, who does not, and this is key, take the losers into account), a long string of wins will appear to be too extraordinary an occurrence to be explained by luck. Note that a "history" is just a series of numbers through time. The numbers can represent degrees of wealth, fitness, weight, anything."