This is a very good book on some brilliant folks and how they made money on gambling and the stock market. The author has had two-books nominated for the Pulitzer & is a vey good read. The book covers a lot of ground: the Combination (Jews & Italians), information theory, telegraphing race results after the race to bust the books, etc. Claude Shannon possessed an incredible mind - and his accomplishments are greater than Einstein to some. For those that are interested....
Fortune's Formula : The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (Hardcover)
by William Poundstone
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809046377/qid=1135615698/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-7841379-8825540?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
From Publishers Weekly
In 1961, MIT mathematics professor Ed Thorp made a small Vegas fortune by "counting cards"; his 1962 bestseller, Beat the Dealer, made the phrase a household word. With Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, Thorp next conquered the roulette tables. In this prosaic but fascinating cultural history, Poundstone (How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?) tells not only what they did but how they did it. For roulette, Poundstone shows, Thorp and Shannon used a betting scheme invented by Shannon's Bell Labs colleague John Kelly, eventually applying Kelly's technique to investing, resulting in long-term records of extraordinary return with low risk. (Thorp revealed the secret in 1966's Beat the Market, but investors proved harder to persuade than blackjack players.) Many other characters figure into Poundstone's entertaining saga: a forgotten French mathematician, two Nobel Prize–winning economists who declared war on the Kelly criterion, Rudy Giuliani, assorted mobsters, and winners and losers in all types of investing and gambling games. The subtitle is not a tease: the book explains and analyzes Kelly's system for turning small advantages into great wealth. The system works, but requires unusual amounts of patience, discipline and courage. The book is good fun for the rest of us.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Edward O. Thorp, author of Beat the Dealer and Beat the Market.
"[A] highly original look at gambling and investing."
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Fortune's Formula : The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (Hardcover)
by William Poundstone
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809046377/qid=1135615698/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-7841379-8825540?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
From Publishers Weekly
In 1961, MIT mathematics professor Ed Thorp made a small Vegas fortune by "counting cards"; his 1962 bestseller, Beat the Dealer, made the phrase a household word. With Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, Thorp next conquered the roulette tables. In this prosaic but fascinating cultural history, Poundstone (How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?) tells not only what they did but how they did it. For roulette, Poundstone shows, Thorp and Shannon used a betting scheme invented by Shannon's Bell Labs colleague John Kelly, eventually applying Kelly's technique to investing, resulting in long-term records of extraordinary return with low risk. (Thorp revealed the secret in 1966's Beat the Market, but investors proved harder to persuade than blackjack players.) Many other characters figure into Poundstone's entertaining saga: a forgotten French mathematician, two Nobel Prize–winning economists who declared war on the Kelly criterion, Rudy Giuliani, assorted mobsters, and winners and losers in all types of investing and gambling games. The subtitle is not a tease: the book explains and analyzes Kelly's system for turning small advantages into great wealth. The system works, but requires unusual amounts of patience, discipline and courage. The book is good fun for the rest of us.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Edward O. Thorp, author of Beat the Dealer and Beat the Market.
"[A] highly original look at gambling and investing."
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