How casino gambling took off during the ‘probability revolution’

The first commercial gambling operations emerged, coincidentally or not, at the same time as the study of mathematical probability in the mid-1600s. By the early 1700s, commercial gambling operations were widespread in European cities such as London and Paris. But in many of the games that were offered, players faced steep odds. Then, in 1713, the brothers Johann and Jacob Bernoulli proved their “Golden Theorem,” known now as the law of large numbers or long...