The earliest full-length account of a chariot race appears in Book xxiii of the Iliad.

The French philosopher Pierre-Hyacinthe Azaïs (1766-1845) formalized the statement that good and evil fortune are exactly balanced in that they produce for each person an equivalent result.

Reflecting an amalgam of economics, monetary, and psychological factors, the stock market represents possibly the most subtly intricate game invented by man.

The essence of the phenomenon of gambling is decision making. The act of making a decision consists of selecting one course of action, or strategy, from among the set of admissible strategies.

In our most Puritan of society, gambling-like other pleasures-is either taxed, restricted to certain hours, or forbidden altogether. Yet the impulse to gamble remains an eternal aspect of the irrationality of man. It finds outlets in business, war, politics, in the formal overtures of the gambling casinos, and in the less ceremonious exchanges among individuals of differing opinions.

From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than risking his earnings on the mindless meanderings of chance. Experience, however, has strongly indicated the reverse proposition to hold true.

There are no conventional games involving conditions of uncertainty without risk.