Stakes and chips
Gambling has provided centuries of inspiration to probabilists and statisticians. The process continues. There also exist fundamental links between betting and a newer subject, Information Theory, which began with Claude Shannon and his ground‐breaking 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communicati...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Significance (Oxford, England) Vol. 3; no. 1; pp. 22 - 25 |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford, UK
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.03.2006
|
| ISSN: | 1740-9705, 1740-9713 |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Gambling has provided centuries of inspiration to probabilists and statisticians. The process continues. There also exist fundamental links between betting and a newer subject, Information Theory, which began with Claude Shannon and his ground‐breaking 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication.
It is a result which arises very naturally. A successful gambler and a successful data compression algorithm must both accurately estimate probability distributions. There are practical results as well as theoretical: Shannon and colleagues, including the legendary gambler and mathematician Edward Thorp, actually attempted to apply results from information theory in Las Vegas casinos and stock market transactions. Oliver Johnson examines the connections. |
|---|---|
| Bibliography: | ark:/67375/WNG-VV5K5P6T-X ArticleID:SIGN147 istex:0A6C5A4115DB77967C1D105425195768527F4875 |
| ISSN: | 1740-9705 1740-9713 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2006.00147.x |