Gambling related articles
Book Review
'Understanding
a Wager'
The author of Understanding a Wager, Ramy Tadros,
is a Sydney based teacher whose background as an analyst
for the Australian Bureau of Statistics has given
him a perfect knowledge base for the subject matter
of the book.
It's a regrettable fact that even in countries with
relatively high standards of education, a widespread
ignorance of basic probability theory prevails. The
already rapid growth of the gambling industry in many
parts of the world has accelerated further since the
advent of online gaming, with internet poker rooms,
casinos, lotto, bingo and bookmakers offering instant,
home based access to various forms of wager. The gaming
industry in general feeds on this gambler ignorance,
especially the fixed return forms of gambling like
casinos, lotto and poker machines.
Websites such as this one try to educate the gambler
to use their intelligence to gain an edge, but the
task is not easy. Human nature is hard to change.
The gambler can be emotional, superstitious, lazy
or egocentric, all normal human traits conducive to
losing money at gambling. From the point of view of
someone involved in trying to get gamblers to change
their losing habits, Ramy Tadros' book is fantastic.
It's a thin, easy to read work that can be easily
digested in a few hours, but it covers enough of the
important information that a losing gambler needs
to pause, take stock, and turn their fortunes around.
Books on probability theory and related mathematical
concepts like Pareto efficiency, Randomness and Poisson
clumping can be very dry, but Tadros keeps it light
and interesting with his informal conversational style.
He keeps the mathematics simple and strictly contextual,
so that when equations are given he is also telling
the story of exactly how they relate to real life
gambling situations. The equations are simple enough
for mathematical novices to actually use themselves.
An example of how the mathematics is related back
to real life is the useful revelation that clumping
is normal and evenness is actually the unnatural interloper.
A dry mathematical treatise on Poisson Clumping could
easily be wasted on a hardened gambler, but by using
every day examples most people can relate to, such
as not randomly bumping into any people you know for
quite a while and then suddenly having it happen several
times, Tadros connects on an emotional level. This
is very important, as knowing something intellectually,
but not really believing it emotionally, is a common
human failing that is highly relevant to gambling.
Tadros takes the reader on a simple but accurate
journey through all the fundamental concepts that
a gambler must understand in order to be able to understand
the difference between positive and negative expectation
bets, and explains why that is important. For many
readers he will do more, he will open their eyes to
a new way of looking at the world, the way of the
mathematically analytical mind. I'll admit here that
I'm biased. I've always found evidence based reason
and intellect refreshing. I like the way that Tadros'
scientific rationalism calmly refutes various gambling
myths thrown up by superstition and ignorance, using
tools that anyone with a modicum of intelligence can
use for themselves.
I recommend this book as the first stop for anyone
who knows a losing gambler they would like to help.
I also think this book would be perfect for young
adults to read before they ever place their first
wager. It's something of a disgrace that so many of
our young are never given the most basic education
in probability theory, an area of human knowledge
that is so important to every day life. Massive industries
like gambling, insurance and even banking, make multi
billion dollar profits because this area is largely
ignored as something that only 'maths people' need
to know about. It's not! So many people lose so much,
making bad gambles, when a few hours of reading could
completely overhaul their way of thinking.
'Understanding a Wager' by Ramy Christopher Tadros
is available online as an E-book.
Reviewed by Guy West
Managing Director OZmium Pty Ltd.
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