本书介绍和发展了各种博彩和游戏活动的理性分析中需要的一些重要而美丽的基本数学知识。大多数标准的赌场游戏（轮盘赌、21点、基诺），一些社交游戏（西洋双陆棋、扑克、桥牌）和各种其他活动（国家彩票、赛马等）都是基于呈现它们的数学层面的方式进行处理的。数学的发展范围从可预测的概率概念、期望、二项式系数到一些不太知名的基本博弈论思想。 第二版新增材料包括：体育博彩和背后的数学；博弈论在扑克唬人中的应用及其与得州扑克现象的关系；Nash均衡概念及其在大众文化中的出现；互联网连接到游戏和Java小程序，用于实践和课堂使用。 读者需要的唯一正规的数学背景是一些高中代数知识。为有兴趣处理和扩展书中讨论的思想的读者准备的游戏相关的习题放在大多数章节末尾。一些习题的答案放在本书的最后。

前辅文
1 The Phenomenon of Gambling
  1.1 Aselectivehisto
  1.2 The gambler in fact and ficti
2 Finite Probabilities and Great Expectations
  2.1 The probability concept and its origi
  2.2 Dice, cards, and probabiliti
  2.3 Roulette, probability and od
  2.4 Compound probabilities: The rules of the gam
  2.5 Mathematical expectation and its applicatio
  2.6 Exercis
3 Backgammon and Other Dice Diversions
  3.1 Backgammon oversimplifi
  3.2 Rolling spots and hitting blo
  3.3 Enteringand bearingo
  3.4 The doubling cu
  3.5 Cra
  3.6 Chuck-a-Lu
  3.7 Exercis
4 Permutations, Combinations, and Applications
  4.1 Careful counting: Is order importan
  4.2 Factorials and other notati
  4.3 Probabilities in poke
  4.4 Betting in pokersimple mode
  4.5 Distributions in bridg
  4.6 Keno type gam
  4.7 Exercis
5 Play it Again Sam: The Binomial Distribution
  5.1 Games and repeatedtria
  5.2 The binomial distributi
  5.3 Beating the odds and the “law” of average
  5.4 Betting syste.
  5.5 brief blackjack breakthrou
  5.6 Exercis
6 Elementary Game Theory
  6.1 What isgame theory
  6.2 Games in extensive fo
  6.3 Two-persongames in normal for
  6.4 Zero-sumgam
  6.5 Nonzero-sum games, Nash equilibria and the prisoners’ dilem
  6.6 Simple n-persongame
  6.7 Power indic
  6.8 Games computers pla
  6.9 Exercis
7 Odds and Ends
  7.1 The mathematics of bluffing and the Texas Holdem invasio
  7.2 Off to the rac
  7.3 Lotteries and your expectati
  7.4 Thegambler’s ru
Answers/Hints for Selected Exercises
Bibliography
Index
About the Author