From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than riskin… - Richard Arnold Epstein

The first-known public lottery was sponsored by Augustus Caesar to raise funds for repairing the city of Rome; the first public lottery awarding money prizes, the Lotto de Firenze, was established in Florence in 1530.

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.

A weakness of the random-walk model lies in its assumption of instantaneous adjustment, whereas the information impelling a stock market toward its "intrinsic value" gradually becomes disseminated throughout the market place.