Beginner's Luck

We often hear the saying that beginners tend to have good luck in things, especially in gambling. This phenomenon is known as beginner's luck.

This always struck me as rather ridiculous; if anything one would expect beginners to do worse. If beginners really had better luck, why not just follow them around in a casino and bet on whatever they bet on? Obviously this claim is not scientific.

However after some consideration, I have hit on a possible explanation for the claim of beginner's luck.

Statistically speaking, half of the beginners who start a luck-based game will have better luck than average, while half will have worse luck than average. More of those who experience above-average luck will elect to continue playing the game, as they have had a lovely time at the start, while those who started with bad luck will have a greater tendency to drop out.

Over time, this makes it so that among the population of gamblers, a larger percentage have experienced good luck when starting, thus causing them to feel that beginners tend to have better luck.