A World of Chance

Reuven Brenner holds the Repap Chair in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and is a partner in Match Strategic Partners. The author of seven other books, including Gambling and Speculation (Cambridge, 1990, with Gabrielle A. Brenner) and Rivalry: In Business, Science, Among Nations (Cambridge, 1987), he examines what makes societies and firms leapfrog over others or fall behind them. The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Times of London, Asia Times, and Smart Money have reviewed his books. He has also served as a consultant to companies such as the Bank of America, Bell Canada, and Knowledge Universe, and he has worked with financial institutions throughout North America. Brenner has also been a frequent commentator in leading media around the world. Forbes Global's columnists have put two of Professor Brenner's titles on their list of recommended books for all time and profiled him in a cover story titled 'Leapfrogging'. He has served on the board of several companies, received a Fulbright Fellowship and the Killam Award, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Gabrielle A. Brenner is Associate Professor of Economics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Montreal, Canada. She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and has written about risk taking, entrepreneurship, and anti-trust. Professor Brenner worked at Lexecon and has also served as a consultant to the World Bank, UNIDO, and CIDA. Aaron Brown is risk manager for AQR Capital Management in Greenwich, CT. He holds degrees in applied mathematics from Harvard University and finance from the University of Chicago. He has worked as a trader, portfolio manager, head of mortgage security, and risk manager for such Wall Street firms as Morgan Stanley and Citigroup; taught finance at Fordham and Yeshiva universities; and ran a public mutual fund. Mr Brown is the author of The Poker Face of Wall Street.

'Did you know that the modern insurance industry is a direct outgrowth of gambling? Did you know that poker provided one of the most important sources of capital for penniless Western frontiersmen in the United States? Did you know that major opera houses of Europe began as gambling halls with the theaters attached (history, if not always the quality of music, repeats itself in Las Vegas)? Do you know the real reason the NFL resists the legalization of sports betting in America? For the fascinating answers and insights into the politics, the finance and the economics of that over-maligned pastime, gambling, and, yes, including the surprising role it has frequently played in finance – read A World of Chance. The odds are strong that you will love it.' Henry G. Manne, Dean Emeritus, George Mason Law School

• 1. From religion to risk management - what do you do when facing uncertainty?; 2. Anything wrong with gambling as a pastime?; 3. Are you rich? Risk-taking, gambling, and the leapfrogging instinct; 4. Betting on futures; 5. Gambling - as banking: poker, junk bonds and central banks; 6. 'Lottery is a taxation, and Heav'n be prais'd, it is easily rais'd'; 7. Politics and prohibitions, or, what's a good tax anyway?; 8. How gamblers and risk-takers correct the future; Appendix 1. Gambling and risk-taking: the leapfrogging instinct; Appendix 2. Human nature and the 'civilizing' process; Appendix 3. A statistical profile of gamblers.