St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and maybe you’ve found yourself thinking about four-leaf clovers and trying to find one yourself. According to Irish tradition, those who find a four-leaf clover are destined for good luck, as each leaf in the clover symbolizes good omens for faith, hope, love, and luck for the finder.
A lesser-known fact about four-leaf clovers is that they aren’t the luckiest symbol after all. Irish legend indicates that those who find a five-leaf clover will actually have more luck and financial success than those who just find a four-leaf clover.
However, good luck can be hard to come by if you’re only relying on finding a four-leaf clover, let alone a five-leaf clover! The estimated statistical odds of finding a four-leaf clover on your first try is 10,000 to 1, and the odds skyrocket to 1,000,000 to 1 if you’re looking to find a five-leaf clover on your first try. (The majority of the clovers you see outside have only three leaves.)
Suppose you want to delve deeper into descriptive statistics and compare the odds of finding a four-leaf clover to the odds of finding a five-leaf clover. In what is known as an odds ratio, you can compare the odds of two events, where the odds of an event equals the probability-the-event-occurs divided by the probability-it-does-not-occur.
In this case, you would find that your odds ratio is 100, showing that it is much more likely for you to find a four-leaf than a five-leaf clover. You can conclude that the odds of finding a four-leaf clover are 100 times greater than your odds of finding a five-leaf clover. (But keep in mind the odds here: it’s still pretty difficult to find a four-leaf clover, especially over a three-leaf clover!)
Why Are Odds Ratios Important?
Odds ratios are not just important for comparing the odds of two events (like we did above with the clovers)—they also play an important role in logistic regression. With binary logistic regression (Stat > Regression > Binary Logistic Regression in Minitab Statistical Software), you can investigate the relationship between a binary response and one or more predictors. You can then use the odds ratio for the predictors to quantify how each predictor affects the probabilities of each response.
For example, suppose you are analyzing data from people who have found four-leaf clovers to determine whether the finder’s gender and age affect their finding abilities. You could create a logistic regression model with the following variables:
| Variable | Type | Description |
| Find | Binary response | Equals 0 if the person did not find, and 1 if the person did find |
| Gender | Binary response | Equals 0 if the person is male, and 1 if the person is female |
| Age | Continuous predictor | Equals the person’s age |
Suppose the logistic regression procedure declares both predictors to be significant. If gender has an odds ratio of 2.0, you conclude that the odds of a woman finding a four-leaf clover is twice the odds of a man finding a four-leaf clover. If age has an odds ratio of 1.05, you conclude that, for each additional year of the finder’s age, the odds of finding increase by 5%.
For each predictor variable in the logistic regression model, Minitab displays an odds ratio and a confidence interval for the odds ratio.
Of course, this is only a hypothetical example! I’m not sure your age or gender really matters—I think finding a four-leaf clover is all about LUCK. And that's pretty difficult to quantify!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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then I found 2 in Mount Shasta, CA. I am back in Peru and
today I found 7 four leaf clovers and 1, 5 leaf clover. What
are the odds of that? Peru has always been a magical place...
a spiritual jouney for me. But truly, what are the odds?
However, if the above events in Peru happened independent of each other, you can just multiply the odds of each event (odds of finding 7 four-leafs multiplied by the odds of finding 1 five leaf) to obtain your answer. (For independent events, the probability that all events will occur is the product of their individual probabilities).
I think you'll find that the probability of you finding 7 four-leaf clovers and 1 five-leaf clover on your first try will be very, very low! Thanks for reading my blog!
I'm impressed too! Thanks for reading and commenting!
-Carly
Thank you for reading!
It's also interesting to see it demonstrated that five-leafs are generally harder to find than four-leafs.
On Wednesday the 30th of May, believe it or not, I had the good fortune of finding 7, 4 leaf clovers & 1, 5 leaf clover without any effort of looking for them.
I made this video last week and wanted to know your perspective on it. In it, I walk right up to a 4-Leaf clover as my first find and then immediately find a 6-Leaf clover. I proceed to find many 5 and 4 leaf clovers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PPNVtrqaLQ
I have always had an unexplanable ability to tap into a source of energy that I use to find clovers.
I actually wrote a book that was recently published called, "Lucky Life Lessons: A Guide to Cultivating Luck and Positive Energy into Your Life"
I also sell 4-Leaf clovers at: www.artofwargo.com
I'm just curious to hear a statistical analysis about my "ability"
Tony Wargo
Statistically, you seem to be beating the odds over and over again! Since you've found so many lucky clovers, have you noticed an increase in personal luck and good fortune?
I've never had luck with taping any plant type materials, but wax paper
works great. Just use two pieces of paper, put the clover, flower,leaf or any plant between them, then place a heavy object over the entire
object. Let it sit there, for as long as it takes for that plant to completely dry out. Now, your ART work can be put into a beautiful picture frame for everyone to see how LUCKY we all are!
Doug Van Reeth
However, if you read the comments above, you'll see that many people find multiple lucky clovers in the same patch over time. So maybe there is something to this - the odds might be a bit better for finding multiple over time in the same proximity over multiple tries, but I can't really say for sure. (Also, keep in mind the odds that I list in the blog post are for finding a 4 or 5 leaf clover on your "first try.")
Thanks for reading!
When I found a single branch with 3, 4 and 5 leaf clovers on it, I brought it home and put it in a glass. It grew for quite a while, and actually produced NEW 4 leafs on it. Yesterday I found my first SIX leaf clover - I'm amazed at how many other people are finding them too! (By the way, the last 2 years do seem to have been very lucky for me...)