Fortuna - The Goddess of Luck

Fortuna is the Roman Goddess of chance and good luck and may be a fine poker god to look to for spiritual help in your poker career.

Originally, when the Romans were looking for a good luck Goddess, they took a chance on the Greek god Tyche, whose function was to bring random good luck.

The Romans decided a make-over was in order, and so with a fresh supply of dice and a new name, the revamped poker god Fortuna became popular within the Roman gambling community.

Fortuna is often depicted wearing a blindfold representing her impartiality as an addition to ensure her randomness. Her traditional symbol is the Wheel of Fortune.

The name Fortuna actually means lot distributor. At her temple, visitors would draw lots (sticks marked with symbols) which the priests of the poker god Fortuna would use to interpret the future.

As in ancient times, Fortuna remains popular in some cultures.

However, before you plan a visit to the local Fortuna temple ahead of your next poker tournament; hold your horses. There may be a problem with the poker god Fortuna.

Because if you implement some very dodgy and wholly inaccurate Latin as the twisted mind of a poker player often does, you can interpret Fortuna to mean, luck goes to the fishes... For-tuna.

Fortuna as said is often pictured as veiled and the idea was that she gave equal favour; however there is a modern interpretation suggesting that whilst she is the personification of luck, it may not all be good luck. I’m not sure a poker player will want to give equal luck to their opponents. From my poker god, I would like good luck to come my way and bad luck to go to the others at my table.

Contemporary ideas of this poker god are of justice with a capricious bent ...erm capricious?

• capriciousness, noun
• the quality of being guided by sudden unpredictable impulses [synonym; unpredictability]
• the trait of acting more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment [synonym; flightiness, arbitrariness, whimsicality, whimsy]