Damon Runyon is always a source of advice about life. Here, in the story 'A Nice Price', there's a guy laying three to one that the Yales will win the boat race against the Harvards, and Sam the Gonoph is tempted to take a punt on the Harvards at those odds:
'I do not know anything about boat races,' Sam says, 'and the Yales may figure as you say, but nothing between human beings is one to three. In fact,' Sam the Gonoph says, 'I long ago come to the conclusion that all life is six to five against. And anyway,' he says, 'how can anybody let such odds as these get away from them?'