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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44172
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When you're worried about a stroke of luck behaving like Deus Ex Machina, it is reasonable to think of that stroke of luck as something magical. Because of that, I believe invoking [Sanderson's First Law of Magic](https://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/) is appropriate:

> An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

In the linked article he goes into more details about the word choices. For example, "to solve conflict" is important. As it turns out, you can use as much magic as you want to create conflict, but the reader better have understanding before you resolve conflict with magic. This opens all sorts of doors. For example, your stroke of luck can convert one conflict to another, minimizing that feeling of "resolving conflict." This leads to stories where one has a burst of luck, but the characters don't realize it was fortuitous until later.

A few answers mentioned things like karma. Karma works in stories because most readers have an intuition about how karma functions. As long as you play to that, it works.

Mystery novels often rely on giving the reader _almost_ all of the pieces, before providing the last piece and letting it all unwind.

So there's many solutions, but I find invoking Sanderson's First Law is an effective test as to which solutions will be accepted and which will not.

Original score: 2