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Synopsis This review of Joseph Mazur’s book on the history of gambling, for a general audience, is in three parts, paralleling the structure of the book. The first part briefly outlines Mazur’s coverage of the history of probability from prehistory to the present day, with a focus on gambling. The second part examines the relationship between the mathematics of gambling and probability theory, and summarizes classical problems in probability arising from gambling such as Galileo’s dice and the Pascal-Fermat problem of points. The third part, on psychology, discusses the gambler’s illusion and psychological motivations for gambling. What’s Luck Got to Do with It? The History, Mathematics, and Psychology of the Gambler’s Illusion. By Joseph Mazur, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2010. (US$29.95, 296 pages. ISBN-10: 0691138907.) Ia m not ag ambler by nature. I have never been to Las Vegas; Ih ave only been to Atlantic City because it is the closest place on the ocean to my childhood home in southern New Jersey. But the number 244/495 means something to me; it is the probability of winning the pass bet at craps. Why do I know this number? Because I am a probabilist ‐ a discrete probabilist, at that ‐ and so I have walked several classes, often full of students not of legal gambling age, through computing this probability. The history of my subject is intimately tied up with the history of gambling. It is this connection that Joseph Mazur explores in his new book, What’s Luck Got to Do with It: The History, Mathematics, and Psychology of the Gambler’s Illusion.

Book Review: What’s Luck Got to Do with It? The History, Mathematics, and Psychology of the Gambler’s Illusion by Joseph Mazur