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May Lady Luck smile on you as tonight you log in to your favourite bingo site for some ninety or seventy five ball fun. But who is Lady Luck when she’s at home?

Lady Luck has existed in many guises since the days of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. She first came to prominence as Fortuna, the blindfolded Goddess of fortune who controlled all aspects of man’s existence that he was unable to control for himself.

Whether ships returned to port or were shipwrecked, whether crops provided a good harvest or failed, whether battles were won or were lost, whether fortunes were made or were not; these and many other aspects of life were all controlled by Fortuna who distributed both good and bad luck randomly. As today justice is supposedly blind, back then so too was fortune.

The mechanism by which Fortuna distributed good and bad luck was a wheel which she turned periodically. When she did so many of those who had previously been blessed with good luck found that their fortunes had been reversed and that they were in for a spate of luck of the opposite flavour. Simultaneously those who had been having a hard time might find that they were to experience a period of good fortune.

Not everyone believed that Fortuna bestowed her favours randomly. It was also believed that “Fortes Fortuna adiuvat” which is Latin for “Fortune favours the brave (and the strong)”. It was Machiavelli who pointed out that, as a woman, this was natural; she was hardly likely to favour the weak and the insignificant.

The early Christians did not take kindly to Fortuna. The concept of luck was contrary to Christianity. To improve your lot it was necessary to pay homage to the Christian God and to do his will. Luck, they said, had no place in Christianity.

But Fortuna refused to be so deposed and lived on in the minds of the Christians. Unable to defeat her, eventually the Christians took her back into their bosom saying that she was in fact God’s servant who carried out God’s will. Of course this adoption meant that Fortuna was no longer autonomous and that luck could now be influenced by prayer.

The concept of luck remains to this day important in our everyday lives, so turn on, log in to skybingo.com and get lucky.