We play games because they can teach us things about real life. For example, by playing Monopoly you can learn a bit about property investment, even if it is impossible, in real life, to own the whole of Mayfair, Park Lane or Regent Street.
However, it’s games of chance that have most fascinated investors. For example Ed Thorp, who heads a successful hedge fund, Princeton-Newport Partners, started as a mathematician and was a professor at MIT. He was also the first person to make money from black-jack using a card-counting system….