The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling

by Adam Kucharski

Overview

"An elegant and amusing account" of how gambling has been reshaped by the application of science and revealed the truth behind a lucky bet (Wall Street Journal).


For the past 500 years, gamblers-led by mathematicians and scientists-have been trying to figure out how to pull the rug out from under Lady Luck. In The Perfect Bet, mathematician and award-winning writer Adam Kucharski tells the astonishing story of how the experts have succeeded, revolutionizing mathematics and science in the process. The house can seem unbeatable. Kucharski shows us just why it isn't. Even better, he demonstrates how the search for the perfect bet has been crucial for the scientific pursuit of a better world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541697232
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/26/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	678,453
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Adam Kucharski is an associate professor and a Sir Henry Dale fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he works on analysis of infectious disease outbreaks. The author of The Perfect Bet, he lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 The Three Degrees of Ignorance 1

Chapter 2 A Brute Force Business 23

Chapter 3 From Los Alamos to Monte Carlo 35

Chapter 4 Pundits with PhDs 71

Chapter 5 Rise of the Robots 109

Chapter 6 Life Consists of Bluffing 135

Chapter 7 The Model Opponent 165

Chapter 8 Beyond Card Counting 197

Acknowledgments 219

Notes 221

Index 257

Editorial Reviews

"An elegant and amusing account... Anyone planning to enter a casino or place an online bet would be advised to keep this book handy."—Wall Street Journal

"This book is full of magic. It's brimming with clever people and clever ideas."—New Scientist

"Beautifully written, solidly researched, and full of surprises."—New York Times' Numberplay blog

"Brilliant new book."—CardsChat

From the Publisher

01/11/2016
On first blush, Kucharski, a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, would seem out of his comfort zone with this detailed exploration of how mathematics and physics operate in the world of gambling. However, he makes clear that the principles of mathematical modeling—the ways myriad variables can be used to predict outcomes—can be profitably transferred to the world of games of chance. Kucharski begins with a brief history of failed searches for the gambler’s holy grail, which would be an infallible system, and then delves into modern mathematically based strategies that can shift the odds in the bettor’s favor. Among the strategies he deconstructs are card counting, the calculation of the physics of a roulette wheel’s spin, online poker-playing bots, and the ultrasophisticated algorithms employed to handicap horse races, soccer, and football. Kucharski’s straightforward writing and attention to the fundamentals of the business of gambling, and the quirky personalities of the players who craft the strategies, successfully balance the drier descriptions of the underlying mathematics. The conjunction of the multibillion dollar gambling industry and mathematics brings together Ph.D.s, Las Vegas gamblers, and investment bankers, and though readers looking for an edge might be disappointed, Kucharski delivers a fascinating read. Agent: Peter Tallack, Science Factory. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2015-12-08
A lucid yet sophisticated look at the mathematics of probability as it's played out on gaming tables, arenas, and fields. Scissors cut paper, rock smashes scissors, paper covers rock: we all know the game, and some of us have a sense of when to play which of the three choices. Game theory, writes Kucharski (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), would hold that the optimal strategy is simply to choose randomly, by which you would come out even in the long term. However, most of us are more predictable than that: if we win with rock over scissors, then we'll choose rock next time. We may shift our strategies, but we're not playing randomly—and in any event, Kucharski observes, "the irony is that even truly random sequences can contain seemingly nonrandom patterns." Sure, card counting works to some extent, but most mathematical behavior is a kind of learned guesswork and a lot of hunch playing. The author doesn't reveal secrets of winning so much as he looks at the myriad ways the math is working against us. "Finding a biased roulette wheel," he notes by way of example, "isn't the same as finding a profitable one," but even so, finding a roulette wheel that "churns out numbers that are uniformly distributed" generally requires collecting a vast body of information about that wheel, something that computers are better at doing than people. The same is true at the parimutuel racetrack, the boxing ring, and every other venue for wagering: having sufficient information is key to making any sort of bet that isn't a mere stab in the dark. Even the most seasoned of bettors is thus usually to be found somewhere along what mathematicians call Poincaré's third level of ignorance. Kucharski's book, which necessarily oversimplifies an extremely complex subject, is no cure for that ignorance, but gamblers and math buffs alike will enjoy it for its smart approach to real-world problems.

Kirkus Reviews