Fortune's Formula

The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street

William Poundstone | 4.25 | 3,483 ratings and reviews

Recommended by P. D. Mangan, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #4 in Gambling, Ranked #40 in Probability — see more rankings.

In 1956 two Bell Labs scientists discovered the scientific formula for getting rich. One was mathematician Claude Shannon, neurotic father of our digital age, whose genius is ranked with Einstein's. The other was John L. Kelly Jr., a Texas-born, gun-toting physicist. Together they applied the science of information theory—the basis of computers and the Internet—to the problem of making as much money as possible, as fast as possible.

Shannon and MIT mathematician Edward O. Thorp took the "Kelly formula" to Las Vegas. It worked. They realized that there was even more money to be made... more

Buy on Amazon