If there was one element of statistical literacy that you could magically implant in every head, what would it be?

enfascination

Alternatively, what single concept from statistics would most improve people's interpretations of popular news and daily life events?

The very basics of probability. I'm talking to the level of "there is about a 1 in 6 chance of a reasonably fair dice coming up 3 on a single roll"

I remember a friend telling me about a game some of his classmates played which was basically about calling high/low on the next card dealt.

He'd made a modest and steady income simply calling based on whether it was greater or less than 7 for the first few cards and he was known as being "lucky". They honestly couldn't comprehend something as simple as that.

Absolutely. Not to mention all the "after a string of red, black is more likely" people....and there are a lot out there

2Brillyant10y

This reminds me of something I've heard in regard to fixed games in sports. People have this idea that fixed games are unlikely because it's too big a conspiracy to not be found out. It would be obvious that one team was throwing the game, or that a referee was being unfair. However, corruption in sports can be pretty simple and hard to notice. For instance, in a basketball game, an official could make the over-under more likely to pay out the over bet just by calling ~10% more fouls in any given game. This could mean blowing the whistle for a foul just 5-7 more times in a 48 minute game, allowing the teams extra free throws, which are high probability opportunities for extra points. Since fouls in basketball are very subjective, it would be very difficult to detect this method of corruption. More importantly to this discussion, the type of game fixing described above need not be guaranteed to cause the desired outcome in any given game. In fact, it's better for the scheme to be very subtle over the course of many games so as to avoid detection. If you wager enough money, it would be statistically quite lucrative to push the probability in your favor by just a few percentage points. $1M per game x 82 games in a season x 30 teams x 52% or 53% probability of winning.