"What do the popular expressions "a swimmer's body" and "beginner's luck" have in common? What do they seem to share with the concept of history? There is a belief among gamblers that beginners are almost always lucky. "It gets worse later, but gamblers are always lucky when they start out," you hear. This statement is actually empirically true: researchers confirm that gamblers have lucky beginnings (the same applies to stock market speculators). Does this mean that each one of us should become a gambler for a while, take advantage of lady luck's friendliness to beginners, then stop? The answer is no. The same optical illusion prevails: those who start gambling will be either lucky or unlucky (given that the casino has the advantage, a slightly greater number will be unlucky). The lucky ones, with the feeling of having been selected by destiny, will continue gambling; the others, discouraged, will stop and will not show up in the sample. They will probably take up, depending on their temperaments, bird-watching, Scrabble, piracy, or other pastimes. Those who continue gambling will remember having been lucky as beginners. The dropouts, by definition, will no longer be part of the surviving gamblers' community. This explains beginner's luck."