The assumption that individuals act objectively in accordance with purely mathematical dictates to maximize their gain or utility cannot be sustained by empirical observation.

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

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

One of the oldest mythological fables tells of Mercury playing at dice with Selene and winning from her the five days of the epact (thus totaling the 365 days of the year and harmonizing the lunar and solar calendars).

The assumption that individuals act objectively in accordance with purely mathematical dictates to maximize their gain or utility cannot be sustained by empirical observation.

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.

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.