This Week Those Books is chock-full of crucial context — from fiction and non-fiction — to the shouty, doomscroll news cycle.
All bets are on…war, famine, sports
A Dostoevsky novel takes a modern view. And another risk-taker calculates the odds
Image: Pixabay
The Big Story:
The big money is on prediction markets, the term used to describe online sites that literally bet on the future of world events such as wars, world cups and famines.
- A US platform has launched a Chinese interface ahead of the new Year of the Horse.
- Billions are being traded in the US on everything from sports events to Taylor Swift’s wedding date and whether Donald Trump will bomb Iran.
Some say modern prediction platforms are not traditional gambling and simply offer a marketplace to trade opinions and monetise the “wisdom of the crowd”, as happened with 16th century papal elections.
Addiction psychologists and policy makers among others, disagree.
Our first book, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, offers a novel take:
“ …why is gambling a whit worse than any other method of acquiring money? How, for instance, is it worse than trade?”
This Week’s Books:
- Dostoevsky on gambling addiction.
- A celebrated poker player and statistician tots up risks and rewards.
Click here to read on
Originally published at https://medium.com
