it's funny how you meet these people that think they can conquer any odds. it defies the entire concept of odds to think you can conquer all odds. so, there's an implicit misunderstanding of the concept inherent in this perspective. so, to me, the more interesting question is how such absurdity can arise?

i think there's a simple psychological explanation that essentially renders the concept as relative - despite all arguments to the contrary. it's ultimately just not carefully thought through, of course. but, i think the way it works is basically this - if you've never put yourself up against serious odds, if all of your challenges in life are things that you're more likely to succeed at than fail at, then you might gather the perception that odds aren't important. if you've always been favoured, and you've always won, it's possible to delude yourself into thinking you'll always win. see, that's the odds working, though. kind of comically.

so, you get these situations where people are faced with 100:1 odds and they approach it with the attitude that the situation is inevitably going to unfold in their favour, like every other situation always has. which is the comfort of modern existence, i suppose.