Gambling Math

From the simple to the intricate and the audacious to the absurd, Adam Kucharski reveals the long and tangled history between betting and science and explains why gambling continues to generate insights into luck and decision making today. Covering exploits and ideas from across the globe, he meets the teams behind hedge funds that capitalize on inaccurate sports betting odds and explains how PhD-level pundits are using methods originally developed for the US nuclear program to predict sports results.

In March 2006, the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with ­million-dollar stakes. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, who managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT. With him was Ken Griffin, who was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group. There, too, were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR Capital Management, and Boaz Weinstein, chess “life master” and king of the credit-default swap.

For fans of Raymond Chandler, Sunset Boulevard, and all things noir... It’s Los Angeles. Michael is a brilliant seventeen-year-old with a mind for numbers and a habit of staying out late. Jake Logan, a struggling actor, is his private tutor. Curious, he follows the boy across the city one night—and discovers the unexpected. A team of teenagers is learning how to count cards in blackjack. They’re led by an elderly but devious mastermind, Father McCauley. He’s a Jesuit priest who’s spent thirty years helping kids finance their college educations by teaching them how to fleece ...