The problem with anecdotes

This is something designers constantly have to deal with in our line of work. Some tend to zoom in and focus on  a single observation/experience and deem that as the problem/solution. Very often we hear people commenting, "my mum/friends..... so that must be true or something must be very wrong with it." However a single observation proves nothing, an experiment that's not controlled could be influenced by lots of factors.

Lucky spot?

People who bet like to believe something about lucky spot, or lucky betting shops. Mind you, these shops do in fact end up producing frequent winning tickets. Personally i do believe there are things around that can't be explained by science and logic. However in this case, i do believe it's a case of self fulfilling prophecy. If you were to take a look at the number of people queuing up for tickets at these booths, and then look at the percentage of winning 4D or toto entries they generated. My guess is you may and will be shocked, that these lucky shops have equal or worst ratio of hits. The reason they kept generating winning entries is because of the huge amount of tickets they sell.

Long distance runner is more likely to die?

I have a friend who once made the statement above. This is because of the constant report of people collapsing during long distance run. He said, " Have you ever heard of a splinter dying while running? But so many cases of people dying after or during long distance!". 

Well here's my answer, first look at the amount of people taking part in marathon, long distance running, compared to sprinting! How many are well trained individuals? Doesn't appear in newspaper doesn't mean it didn't happen. Reporters tend to look for news that people are looking out for, so obviously there's more casual long distance runner compared to all sprinters. Thus the chance of one collapsing and being reported is way higher than if they're sprinters.

Anyway I'm not disagreeing with anything, more of stating possibilities of other reasoning.  So please think critically before setting your mind on a single reason.