What Is a Lucky Cigarette?

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Origins of the lucky cigarette, explained

Co-authored by Eric McClure

Last Updated: June 30, 2025 Fact Checked

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• What’s a lucky cigarette?
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• Origins of the Lucky Cigarette
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• What do you do with a lucky cigarette?
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• Warnings

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The practice of choosing one cigarette in a fresh pack to be a “lucky” cigarette by flipping it upside down is old. But how old is it, exactly? We’ll dig into the meaning of the practice and where it came from, below.

History of the Lucky Cigarette

The “lucky” cigarette is a single upside-down cigarette inside of a fresh pack that's saved for last. This tradition may have begun in World War II—US soldiers would flip Lucky Strike cigarettes upside down and smoke the end with the logo first to prevent enemy troops from identifying them by their cigarette butts.

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Section 1 of 3:

What’s a lucky cigarette?

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1. 
   The “lucky” is a single cigarette flipped upside down in the pack. If you take a look at someone’s pack of cigarettes and one of them is flipped so that the end you light is on top, that’s the lucky. Most smokers do this as a kind of playful ritual that doesn’t mean anything deep, while other smokers do this for genuinely superstitious reasons. The lucky is usually saved as the last smoke in the past.

   • Typically, smokers will designate a lucky cigarette as soon as they open a fresh pack of cigarettes.
   • You can put a lucky anywhere in the pack, but smokers will typically flip one of the cigarettes in the front row.
   • Smoking the lucky cigarette early is considered bad luck.
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Section 2 of 3:

Theories on the Origin of the Lucky Cigarette

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   Theory #1—World War 2 troops covering their tracks. Lucky Strike cigarettes have a stamp on one end. When US troops would get Lucky Strikes in their rations, they’d flip all but one of the cigarettes upside down in the pack so that they’d smoke the logo first. The theory is that if a fight broke out mid-smoke, soldiers could drop their cigarettes and the enemy wouldn’t know who was smoking them (only US soldiers received Lucky Strikes).

   • The story goes that US soldiers would leave the last un-flipped cigarette for a time when things were calm.
   • World War 2 is where the phrase “smoke ‘em if you got em” comes from. Cigarettes were a part of every soldier’s weekly rations, and they’d famously run out before the next ration was available.
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   Theory #2—Vietnam soldiers were celebrating survival. The second major theory behind the “lucky” cigarette is that Vietnam soldiers would flip one cigarette upside down and smoke it last as a way of celebrating the fact that they get to live long enough to smoke another pack. In this way, getting to the upside-down cigarette was a sign the smoker was lucky in combat.

   • Ever see a Vietnam soldier storing cigarettes in their helmet band in a movie? Soldiers would store smokes up there in case they had to wade through water. This way, the cigarettes would stay dry.
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   Theory #3—It developed as a reference to Lucky Strikes. This explanation seems much less likely given the lack of a record, but some people point out the “lucky” practice started at the same time as filtered cigarettes. Lucky Strike famously refused to put a filter on their main product (they still don’t to this day), so a “lucky” cigarette became a cigarette with no filter. By flipping a filtered cigarette upside down in the pack, it would look like a Lucky Strike because the tobacco would show (instead of the filter, which is usually at the top of the pack).
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Section 3 of 3:

What do you do with a lucky cigarette?

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   Smoke it last, as per tradition. If you’re a smoker and you want to follow in the footsteps of your ancestors, leave the lucky for last! Treat it as a special little ritual and smoke it while reflecting on the journey you’ve been on since you opened the pack.

   • Note that smoking is unhealthy and the best thing to do is to quit as soon as possible.
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   Smoke it when you need a bit of good luck. A lot of smokers won’t intentionally leave the lucky for last—they use it whenever they can use some positive energy. If you’ve got a big test coming up or you’re about to tackle a tough conversation with a significant other, break out the lucky and smoke it as a way to give yourself an extra boost.
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   Let someone else have your lucky if they ask to bum a smoke. If you’re a frequent target outside of buildings and bars for the “let me bum a cigarette” crowd, you could always give away your lucky as a symbolic form of goodwill.
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Warnings

• Smoking is proven to be extremely bad for your health. It can lead to gum disease, lung cancer, and increases the odds of cardiovascular disease. If you are a smoker, quit now to improve your health.
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• Note that filters don’t actually make a cigarette safer. Filtered and unfiltered cigarettes are equally dangerous and bad for your health.
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