The Mathematics of Games and Gambling

By Edward Packel

You can't lose with this MAA Book Prize winner if you want to see how mathematics can be used to analyze games of chance and skill. Roulette, craps, blackjack, backgammon, poker, bridge, lotteries and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 088385628X
• ISBN13: 9780883856284
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Mathematical Association of America (MAA)
• Length: 151 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Will help you win?

This is one of the most entertaining books on the subject of game theory! Highly recommended. Of course, you may not win all the time in any gambling games but if after studying it, you will have a sense of how it works! THat is it!

Basic, yet thorough intro to the theory of games of chance

When I was teaching full-time in the `80s, the math topic that students found most interesting was the analysis of gambling. One student in particular had written a program that analyzed the past history of racing greyhounds in an attempt to increase his odds of winning at the dog track. The students were also the most attentive in class when I was working through an analysis of either casino games or the state run lotteries. We held several discussions on various ways to "beat" the games that were suggested by the students or explained in class. I received and answered many questions about the odds of winning in many scenarios, sometimes to the disappointment and disbelief of the person asking the question. From now on, I will direct students with such questions to this book if they find my answers unsatisfactory. It is a brief, yet thorough analysis of the mathematical foundations of some basic board and casino games. Problems for further testing and study are given at the end of most sections, so it is possible to use it as a textbook in short courses in basic probability theory. The level of difficulty is consistent with that of a beginning course, and the only mathematical prerequisites are the most basic of algebraic operations. Gambling is an activity that will continue to be a part of the human experience as long as humans have their present form. To many, it is an activity of addiction, to others one of recreation and to mathematicians it can be both. I fall in the latter category, as I often point out to people how their opinions about the possibility of success are exactly what the gambling companies want them to be. This book is an excellent description of how the games work and how billions are made by being on the right side of slightly favorable odds.