24 Aug 2025

A statistics professor on the nature of 'luck'

From Sunday Morning, 10:05 am on 24 August 2025
Jeffrey Rosenthal, Professor of Statistics at University of Toronto

Professor Jeffrey Rosenthal Photo: Henry Chan Jr.

Self-described ‘mild-mannered statistics professor’ Jeffrey Rosenthal found himself embroiled in an online chess drama when he was asked to work out whether the long winning streaks of one of the world’s top chess players could be likely.  

The University of Toronto professor joins Jim to discuss whether the chess player may have been cheating, opinion polls, superstitions, luck, and the lottery fraud he helped uncover. 

A close-up of a hand knocking down one chess piece with another.

Learning chess in a safe space, teenagers with autism can simultaneously build up their social skills, says former teenage champion Evguenia Charomova. Photo: Mesh / Unsplash+