几个世纪以来人类投入大量金钱试图打破机率。目前30多个国家已将赌博通过国家彩票或私人赌场等方式使其合法化。在过去的10年里这令人沉迷的娱乐通过互联网也已生成百万之多。
如何成为一个成功的赌徒呢?上溯到1873年，工程师Joseph Jaggers在蒙地卡罗的赌场因为注意到轮盘赌具的轮盘给出某个数字的次数最多这一机械错误，使其三天之内赢得30万美元。近年来，香港一个澳大利亚人编写了一个软件程序以帮助他在赌马时预先料到获胜者，预计他在过去的20年间赢得1.5亿元。
彩票头奖最多是多少?目前记录是3.5亿元，2000年在美国有两个人获得。当然这是极小的数额。每年仅仅是把一只航空母舰放水里都要4.44亿元……国家彩票中最高个人得奖金额是2000年美国强力球彩票的3.149亿元，被一个刚刚在下水道生意中大赚一笔的男子所夺得。2003年另一个美国人在拉斯韦加斯一家赌场的老虎机上投入大约价值$100的硬币后获得了$39,700,000 。幸运的人事实上仅仅是去看了场篮球赛。
为何会有彩票呢？彩票常是用来帮国家赚钱的。中国在2000年前就用彩票来筹钱修建长城。17世纪英格兰国王詹姆斯一世也曾用其为在美洲的新殖民地弗吉尼亚提供资金。伦敦的大英博物馆也是通过这种方式集资建成的。
哪个城市从赌博中获利最多？毫无疑问地是拉斯韦加斯。1930年赌博还未合法化时那里只是个一毛不拔的小城镇;现在那里每年有三千五百万游客，每年从赌场获利75亿美元。这些收益用来干什么呢?建造旅馆，世界上最大的MGM Grand Hotel & Casino有500间房间。事实上有人估计一个人如要睡遍拉斯韦加斯每一个旅馆的每一个房间需用时329年。
最不成功的赌注是什么?1914年政客舞弊者Horatio Bottomley到比利时在一次赛马比赛中买下全部六匹马。他还给每个骑师钱让其按不同顺序跨过终点线。然后他把巨额金钱投注在所有的马上。不幸的是，该比赛是在海边进行的，突来大雾迷漫使得骑师们无法看见彼此，裁判辨认不出谁胜谁负。最终Bottomley损失大笔钱财。
最长时间的赌博是什么？应是作家Paul Ehrlich和商人Julian Simon之间的10年之赌，打赌某些金属在1990年的价格会比1980年高。最终Ehrlich输了，铜，铬，镍，锡和钨的价格下跃。 Simon试着证明世界没有面临大灾难，人类没有耗尽所有资源，一切不是像Ehrlich预言的那样。但他拒绝再打第二个赌，即接下来的10年里“温室”气体和AIDS感染者会增加而热带雨林，耕地和人类精子数量则会减少。
最为古怪的赌注是什么？这是大约100年前在伦敦一家俱乐部里喝了些酒后打的一个赌。一位美国商人打赌一个英国客商走遍世界不可能不被认出来，赌金是10万元。Harry Bensley同意接受挑战。整个旅程他必须戴着一个铁面具并通过卖画为生。旅行途中他还必须找一个愿意嫁给他的女人，推一辆婴儿车和带上一套换洗内衣物。他于1908年1月从伦敦出发，沿路没走几英里就因无照销售名信片被捕。他被认为是走得最远的。1914年第一次世界大战爆发时他正在意大利回家的路上，最后不得不取消这个赌约。
译文
Human beings have spent large amounts of money trying to beat the laws of probability for centuries. More than thirty countries currently have legalized gambling in the form of national lotteries or private casinos. In the last ten years this addictive pastime has been generating millions more via the internet.
So how do you become a successful gambler? – back in 1873, engineer Joseph Jaggers won $300,000 dollars in three days at the casino in Monte Carlo by noticing that the mechanical faults in their roulette wheels made certain numbers come up more often than others. More recently, an Australian wrote a software programme to help him spot winners on the horses in Hong Kong and has supposedly won $150 million over the last 20 years.
What’s the biggest lottery jackpot ever? – the record is currently $350 million, won by two people in the USA in May 2000. This, of course, is peanuts. It costs $444 million a year just to keep an aircraft carrier in the water…The biggest single win on a national lottery was $314.9 million in the Powerball game in 2002 by a man who had already made a fortune in the sewer business. Another American won $39.7 million from a slot machine in a Las Vegas casino in 2003 after putting in about $100 worth of coins. The lucky man had actually only gone to watch a basketball match.
Why do lotteries exist? – often to make money for the state. The Chinese had a lottery over 2000 years ago to raise money to build the Great Wall. King James I of England set one up to finance the new colony of Virginia in America in the 17th century. The British Museum in London was also built this way.
Which city earns the most from gambling? – Las Vegas, of course. Before gaming was legalized there in the 1930s it was a small desert town; today it has 35 million visitors and earns seven and a half thousand million dollars from its casinos every year. What do they do with the profits? Build hotels, it seems – the world’s biggest is the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino with 5,005 rooms. In fact somebody estimated it would take one person 329 years to sleep in every hotel room in Vegas.
What’s the least successful bet? – politician and fraudster Horatio Bottomley went to Belgium in 1914 and bought all six horses in a race. He also paid the jockeys to cross the finishing line in a particular order. Then he put huge amounts of money on all the horses. Unfortunately, the race meeting was by the sea and a mist came in and covered the entire course. The jockeys couldn’t see each other and the judges couldn’t make out who had won. Bottomley lost a fortune.
What’s the longest-running bet? There was a ten-year bet between writer Paul Ehrlich and businessman Julian Simon that the price of certain metals would be higher in 1990 than in 1980. Ehrlich lost when copper, chrome, nickel, tin and tungsten dropped in price. Simon was trying to make the point that the world is not heading for catastrophe and that we are not using up the world’s resources as Ehrlich had predicted. He refused, however, to agree to a second bet that in the following ten years there would be an increase in greenhouse gases and AIDS victims and a decrease in tropical rainforests, agricultural land and human sperm counts.
What’s the strangest bet ever made? Here’s one which started a hundred years ago in a London club, presumably after a certain amount of alcohol had been taken. An American businessman bet a British investor $100,000 that it was not possible to walk around the world without being recognised. A certain Harry Bensley agreed to take up the challenge. He had to wear an iron mask for the whole trip and pay his way by selling pictures of himself. While travelling, he also had to find a woman who would marry him, to push a pram and carry only one change of underwear! He set off from London in January 1908 and was arrested a few miles down the road for selling postcards without a licence. He supposedly got most of the way round the world and was in Italy on his way home in 1914 when the First World War broke out and he had to call the whole thing off.