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.

Coin matching and finger flashing were among the first formal games to arise in the history of gambling. The class of Morra games extends back to the pre-Christian era, although not until comparatively recent times have game-theoretic solutions been derived.

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.

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

A proven theorem of game theory states that every game with complete information possesses a saddle point and therefore a solution.

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.

Generally, a betting system for which each wager depends only on present resources and present probability of success is known as a Markov betting system.