What's Luck Got to Do with It?: The History, Mathematics, and Psychology of the Gambler's Il... Book

The mathematics behind most casino games and lotteries can be understood by everyone except the most mathematically naive. No matter how you approach it, the answer to all games is the same, "the player will always lose in the long run." Nevertheless, human psychology frequently gets in the way and this fact is replaced by some version of the "gambler's fallacy." Reduced to the lowest terms, it simply means that the long run is not now; the player believes that they "have the luck" and that they will win if they are persistent. A frequent consequence is when a gambler suffers a large loss so they perform an even riskier move in an attempt to recover.
This aspect of human psychology is quite complex, involving everything from the seeking of pleasure, greed, the seeking of attention to the alleviation of boredom. While Mazur does spend some time in explaining the mathematical computation of the odds of winning, that area is better explained elsewhere.
What makes this book interesting is that Mazur explores the history of and the reasons why humans gamble. While he does not reach any irrefutable conclusions, the discussion of the human drive to take risks is what makes this book so interesting. Gambling takes many forms, from the playing of a "simple" game of Bingo to making risky investments where the cost of failure is measured in billions. This broad spectrum is covered, for it all boils down to human psychology, where few win but all somehow believe that they will be among the chosen, successful few.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission and this review appears on Amazon