Chasing the win can makes us lose much money, especially in the gambling games based on luck. We don't knows when we can win. Even if we try so hard to win but if we don't have luck, we can't win. What we needs to do is just playing gambling as usual. We don't needs to have a target to win and just enjoy the games. Maybe the luck will comes to us when we can enjoy the games because sometimes I see this thing happens to some gamblers. Their minds are not thinks about the win instead just trying to enjoy their spare time by playing gambling. But we still don't knows when our luck will comes and even we try to predicts, our predictions can be wrong so it's better to enjoy the gambling games as an entertainment and lets the luck comes to us. The luck factor comes to the right person and that will be rolls from one people to the others.
The luck factor will always be something decisive, because personally I have always said something, we know that for the casino we must have a lot of luck, and we do not know when we have this luck factor, we do not know what can influence it, so this is something that is not predicted, no A calculation is made so that luck acts, that is not the case, so the things you try to do to win more, sometimes the strategies work, but in casino games, for me the first thing is that you have good luck if you want earn money; Otherwise, I don't think strategies are a great option to try to make more money.
I believe that each of us has to make our own luck with knowledge, in fact I believe that luck is a factor accompanied by knowledge, that way you can win.
I hardly succumb to coincidence, and what Op's friend thinks happened is far beyond his understanding. Luck is a personal experience, people who don't gamble or suggest ideas with us while gambling, may not influence our luck. I think the player out of joy, accepts that Op contributed to his winning a huge amount. However, in terms of knowledge influencing luck, as you said. Do you think the endless hours players spend analyzing games helps in adjusting their luck?
Some players who before gambling don't digest the previous games, still make correct predictions. It's luck with no knowledge. Pure luck, in this context. Meaning that, if a player is not experienced in gambling, he could win. The things we do to win money don't exist. Except winning in other contexts like critical thinking and money management. Possessing such skills sounds like a win to me, because it could be implemented outside gambling. Giving the player a better reason to gamble, to learn more. Those strategies work in developing personal discipline, not making money.