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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In A Man for All Markets, [Thorp] delightfully recounts his progress (if that is the word) from college teacher to gambler to hedge-fund manager. Along the way we learn important lessons about the functioning of markets and the logic of investment.”—The Wall Street Journal

“So entertaining . . . pretty wonderful . . . Thorp’s manner of thinking and doing . . . is an inspiration in these confused times.”—Bloomberg.com

“[Thorp] gives a biological summation (think Richard Feynman’s Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!) of his quest to prove the aphorism ‘the house always wins’ is flawed. . . . Illuminating for the mathematically inclined, and cautionary for would-be gamblers and day traders”—
Library Journal

“[A Man for All Markets is] the kind of thing any would-be investor, to say nothing of casino cowboy, ought to read. Thorp’s in-the-trenches account of gaming the system(s) is a pleasure—and instructive, too.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An amazing book by a true icon . . . Edward O. Thorp launched revolutions in Vegas and on Wall Street by turning math into magic, and here he weaves his own life lessons into a page-turner as hot as a deck full of aces. Loved it!”—Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires

“Whether you are an aspiring professional player, a casual gambler, or an occasional visitor to Las Vegas, you can feel the impact of Edward O. Thorp’s intellect on that desert city. In 1962, Thorp published the classic book Beat the Dealer. The text was based on Thorp’s original research that stemmed from his curiosity about the game of 21 and was billed as a how-to book for the layperson to beat the casinos at blackjack. Simply stated, it changed everything. A Man for All Markets chronicles Thorp’s personal journey in navigating the unexpected and sometimes dangerous obstacles that come along with challenging the status quo of a wealthy corporate adversary.”—Nicholas G. Colon, professional advantage gambler and managing director, Alea Consulting Group

“What a CV! Figure out how to win at blackjack using card counting? Check. Build the world’s first wearable computer? Check. Find the formula for valuing financial options but use it to make money rather than win a Nobel Prize? Check. This book is in part the gripping story of how one man’s genius and dedication has solved so many problems in diverse fields. But more important, it’s a fascinating insight into the thought processes of someone with little interest in fame, who has mostly stayed under the radar, yet who has followed his inquisitive mind wherever it has led him, and reaped the resulting rewards. There is nothing more important than knowing how to think clearly. Read this book and learn from a master.”—Paul Wilmott, founder, Wilmott magazine

About the Author

Edward O. Thorp is the author of the bestseller Beat the Dealer, which transformed the game of blackjack. His subsequent book, Beat the Market, co-authored with Sheen T. Kassouf, influenced securities markets around the globe. Thorp is one of the world’s best blackjack players andinvestors, and his hedge funds were profitable every year for twenty-nine years. He lives in Newport Beach, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Loving to Learn

My first memory is of standing with my parents on an outdoor landing at the top of some worn and dirty wooden steps. It was a gloomy Chicago day in December 1934, when I was two years and four months old. Even wearing my only set of winter pants and a jacket with a hood, it was cold. Black and leafless, the trees stood out above the snow-covered ground. From inside the house a woman was telling my parents, “No, we don’t rent to people with children.” Their faces fell and they turned away. Had I done something wrong? Why was I a problem? This image from the depths of the Great Depression has stayed with me always.

I next recall being taken at age two and a half to our beloved family physician, Dr. Dailey. My alarmed parents explained that I had yet to speak a single word. What was wrong? The doctor smiled and asked me to point to the ball on his desk. I did so, and he asked me to pick up his pencil. After I had done this and a few more tasks he said, “Don’t worry, he’ll talk when he’s ready.” We left, my parents relieved and a little mystified.

After this, the campaign to get me to talk intensified. About the time of my third birthday, my mother and two of her friends, Charlotte and Estelle, took me along with them to Chicago’s then famous Montgomery Ward department store. As we sat on a bench near an elevator, two women and a man got off. Charlotte, keen to tempt me into speech, asked, “Where are the people going?” I said clearly and distinctly, “The man is going to buy something and the two women are going to the bathroom to do pee-pee.” Charlotte and Estelle both blushed deeply at the mention of pee-pee. Far too young to have learned conventional embarrassment, I noticed this but didn’t understand why they reacted that way. I also was puzzled by the sensation I had caused with my sudden change from silence to talkativeness.

From then on I spoke largely in complete sentences, delighting my parents and their friends, who now plied me with questions and often received surprising answers. My father set out to see what I could learn.

Born in Iowa in 1898, my father, Oakley Glenn Thorp, was the second of three children, with his brother two years older and sister two years younger. When he was six his family broke up. His father took him and his brother to settle in the state of Washington. His mother and sister remained in Iowa. In 1915 my grandfather died from the flu, three years before the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918–19, which killed between twenty and forty million people worldwide. The two boys lived with an uncle until 1917. Then my father, at age eighteen, went to France to join World War I as part of the great American Expeditionary Force. He fought with the infantry in the trenches, rose from private to sergeant, and was awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, and two Purple Hearts for heroism in places like Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and the Battles of the Marne. As a very small boy I remember sitting in his lap on a humid afternoon examining the shrapnel scars on his chest and the minor mutilation of some of his fingers.

Following his discharge from the army after the war, my father enrolled at Oklahoma A&M. He completed a year and a half before he had to leave for lack of funds, but his hunger and respect for education endured and he instilled them in me, along with his unspoken hope that I would achieve more. Sensing this and hoping it would bring us closer, I welcomed his efforts to teach me.

As soon as I began to talk, he introduced me to numbers. I found it easy to count first to a hundred, then to a thousand. Next I learned how to increase any number by adding one to get the next number, which meant I could count forever if I only knew the names of the numbers. I soon learned how to count to a million. Adults seemed to think this was a very big number so I sat down to do it one morning. I knew I could eventually get there but I had no idea how long it was going to take. To get started, I chose a Sears catalog the size of a big-city telephone book because it seemed to have the most things to count. The pages were filled with pictures of merchandise labeled with the letters A, B, C . . . , which I recall appeared as black letters in white circles. I started at the beginning of the catalog and counted all the circled letters, one for each item, page after page. After a few hours I fell asleep at something like 32,576. My mother reported that when I awoke I resumed with “32,577 . . .”

A trait that showed up at about this time was my tendency not to accept anything I was told until I had checked it for myself. This had consequences. When I was three, my mother told me not to touch the hot stove because it would burn me. I brought my finger close enough to feel the warmth, then pressed the stove with my hand. Burned. Never again.

Another time, I was warned that fresh eggs would crack if they were squeezed just a little bit. Wondering what “a little bit” meant, I squeezed an egg very slowly until it cracked, then practiced squeezing another, stopping just before it would crack, to see exactly how far I could go. From the beginning, I loved learning through experimentation and exploration how my world worked.

After teaching me counting, my father’s next project for me was reading. We started with See Spot, See Spot Run, and See Jane. I was puzzled and disoriented for a couple of days; then I saw that the groups of letters stood for the words we spoke. In the next few weeks I went through all of our simple beginner books and developed a small vocabulary. Now it got exciting. I saw printed words everywhere and realized that if I could figure out how to pronounce them I might recognize them and know what they meant. Phonics came naturally, and I learned to sound out words so I could say them aloud. Next was the reverse process—hear a word and say the letters—spelling. By the time I turned five I was reading at the level of a ten-year-old, gobbling up everything I could find.

Our family dynamics also changed then, with the birth of my brother. My father, fortunate to be employed in the midst of the Great Depression, worked longer hours to support us. My mother was fully occupied by the new baby and was even more focused on him when, at six months of age, he caught pneumonia and nearly died. This left me much more on my own and I responded by exploring endless worlds, both real and imagined, to be found in the books my father gave me.

Over the next couple of years I read books including Gulliver’s Travels, Treasure Island, and Stanley and Livingstone in Africa. When, after an eight-month arduous and dangerous search, Stanley found his quarry, the only European known to be in Central Africa, I thrilled to his incredible understatement, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” and I discussed the splendor of the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River with my father, who assured me (correctly) that they far surpassed our own Niagara Falls.

Gulliver’s Travels was a special favorite, with its tiny Lilliputians, giant Brobdingnagians, talking horses, and finally the mysterious Laputa, a flying island in the sky supported by magnetic forces. I enjoyed the vivid pictures it created in my mind and the fantastical notions that spurred me to imagine for myself further wonders that might be. But at the time Swift’s historical allusions and social satire mostly escaped me, despite explanations by my father.

From Malory’s story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, I learned about heroes and villains, romance, justice, and retribution. I admired the heroes who, through extraordinary abilities and resourcefulness, achieved great things. Introverted and thoughtful, I may have been inspired to mirror this in the future by using my mind to overcome intellectual obstacles, instead of my body to defeat human opponents. The books helped establish lifelong values of fair play, a level playing field for everyone, and treating others as I myself wish to be treated.

The words and adventures were largely in my head; I didn’t really have anyone to discuss them with, except sometimes my tired father after work or on weekends. This led to an occasional unique pronunciation. For instance, for a couple of years I thought misled (miss-LED) was pronounced MYE-zzled, and for years afterward when I saw the word in print I would hesitate for a beat as I mentally corrected my pronunciation.

When I was reading or just thinking, my concentration was so complete that I lost all awareness of my surroundings. My mother would call me, with no response. Thinking I was willfully ignoring her, the shout would became a yell, then she would bring her flushed face right up to me. Only when she appeared in my visual field did I snap back into the here and now and respond. She had a hard time deciding whether her son was stubborn and badly behaved or was really as unaware as he claimed.

Though we were poor, my parents valued books and managed to buy me one occasionally. My father made challenging choices. As a result, between the ages of five and seven I carried around adult-looking books and strangers wondered if I actually knew what was in them. One man put me to an unexpected and potentially embarrassing test.

It happened because my parents became friends with the Kesters, who lived on a farm in Crete, Illinois, about forty-five miles from our home. They invited us out for two weeks every summer, starting in 1937 when I was turning five. These special days were what I most looked forward to each year. For a city boy from the outskirts of Chicago, it was sheer joy to watch “water spiders” scoot over the surface of a slowly meandering creek, to play hide-and-seek in the fields of tall corn, to catch butterflies and display them arrayed and mounted on boards, and to wander through the fields and among the cottonwood trees and orchards. The Kesters’ oldest boy, strapping twentysomething Marvin, would carry me around on his shoulders. My mother, along with the women of the household, Marvin’s pretty sister Edna Mae, their mother, and their aunt May, would preserve massive quantities of fruits and vegetables. In our basement back home my father built racks for the rubber-sealed mason jars of corn, peaches, and apricots that we brought back. Then there were the rows of fruit jellies, jams, and preserves in glasses sealed with a layer of paraffin on top. This cornucopia would last us well into the next year.

My father helped Marvin and his father, Old Man Kester, with the work of the farm, and sometimes I tagged along. One sunny forenoon during the second summer of our two weeks in Crete, my father took me to pick up supplies at a local store. I was just turning six, tall and thin with a mop of curly brown hair, lightly tanned, pants too short, the bare ankles ending in a pair of tennis shoes with frayed laces. I was carrying A Child’s History of England by Charles Dickens.

A stranger chatting with my father took the volume I was holding, written at the tenth-grade level, thumbed through it, then told my father, “That kid can’t read this book.” My father replied proudly, “He’s already read it. Ask him a question and you’ll see.”

With a smirk the man said, “Okay, kid, name all the kings and queens of England in order and tell me the years that they reigned.” My father’s face fell but to me this seemed to be just another routine request to look into my head to see if the information was there.

I did and then recited, “Alfred the Great, began 871, ended 901, Edward the Elder, began 901, ended 925,” and so on. As I finished the list of fifty or so rulers with “Victoria, began in 1837 and it doesn’t say when she ended,” the man’s smirk had long vanished. Silently he handed me back the book. My father’s eyes were shining.

My father was a sad and lonely man who didn’t express his feelings and who rarely touched us, but I loved him. I felt that this stranger was using me to put him down and I realized that I had stopped it. Whenever I remember my dad’s happiness at this, it echoes in me with a force that still seems undiminished.

My unusual retention of information was pronounced until I was about nine or ten, when it faded into a memory that is very good for what I’m interested in and, with exceptions, not especially remarkable for much else. I still remember facts from this time such as my phone number (Lackawanna 1123) and address (3627 North Oriole; 7600 W, 3600 N) in Chicago and Chicago’s seven-digit population (3,376,438), cited in the old green 1930 Rand McNally Atlas and Gazetteer that’s still on my bookshelf.

Between the ages of three and five I learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers of any size. I also learned the US version of the prefixes million, billion, trillion, and so on, up to decillion. I found that I could add columns of figures quickly by either seeing them or hearing them. One day when I was five or six I was in the neighborhood grocery store with my mother and overheard the owner calling out the prices as he totaled up the customer’s bill on his adding machine. When he announced the answer, I said no, and gave him my number. He laughed good-naturedly, added the numbers again, and found I was right. To my delight he rewarded me with an ice-cream cone. After that I dropped by when I could and checked his totals. On the rare occasions when we disagreed, I was usually correct and would get another cone.

My father taught me to compute the square root of a number. I learned to do it with pencil and paper as well as to work out the answer in my head. Then I learned to do cube roots.

Before the advent of writing and books, human knowledge was memorized and transmitted down the generations by storytellers; but when this skill wasn’t necessary it declined. Similarly, in our time with the ubiquity of computers and hand calculators, the ability to carry out mental calculations has largely disappeared. Yet a person who knows just grammar school arithmetic can learn to do mental calculations comfortably and habitually.

This skill, especially to make rapid approximate calculations, remains valuable, particularly for assessing the quantitative statements that one continually encounters. For instance, listening to the business news on the way to my office one morning, I heard the reporter say, “The Dow Jones Industrial Average [DJIA] is down 9 points to 11,075 on fears of a further interest rate rise to quell an overheated economy.” I mentally estimated a typical (one standard deviation ) DJIA change from the previous close, by an hour after the open, at about 0.6 percent or about sixty-six points. The probability of the reported move of “at least” nine points, or less than a seventh of this, was about 90 percent, so the market action was, contrary to the report, very quiet and hardly indicative of any fearful response to the news. There was nothing to worry about. Simple math allowed me to separate hype from reality.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00SEFEYCI
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House
Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 24, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 14.4 MB
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 390 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780812998740
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0812998740
Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #84,584 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2 in Card Game Gambling
- #34 in Biographies of Business Professionals
- #37 in Analysis & Trading Investing Strategies
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent more than two decades as a risk taker before becoming a full-time essayist and scholar focusing on practical, philosophical, and mathematical problems with chance, luck, and probability. His focus in on how different systems handle disorder.
He now spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés. In addition to his life as a trader he spent several years as an academic researcher (12 years as Distinguished Professor at New York University's School of Engineering, Dean's Professor at U. Mass Amherst).
He is the author of the Incerto (latin for uncertainty), accessible in any order (Skin in the Game, Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, and Fooled by Randomness) plus a technical version, The Technical Incerto (Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails). Taleb has also published close to 55 academic and scholarly papers as a backup, technical footnotes to the Incerto in topics ranging from Statistical Physics and Quantitative Finance to Genetics and International affairs. The Incerto has more than 250 translations in 50 languages.
Taleb believes that prizes, honorary degrees, awards, and ceremonialism debase knowledge by turning it into a spectator sport.
""Imagine someone with the erudition of Pico de la Mirandola, the skepticism of Montaigne, solid mathematical training, a restless globetrotter, polyglot, enjoyer of fine wines, specialist of financial derivatives, irrepressible reader, and irascible to the point of readily slapping a disciple." La Tribune (Paris)
A giant of Mediterranean thought ... Now the hottest thinker in the world", London Times
"The most prophetic voice of all" GQ
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Edward O. Thorp
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Edward O Thorp is widely known as the author of the 1962 Beat the Dealer, which was the first book to prove mathematically that blackjack could be beaten by card counting, and the 1967 Beat the Market, which showed how warrant option markets could be priced and beaten. He is regarded as one of the best hedge fund managers in the world. He is also regarded as the co-inventor of the first wearable computer along with Claude Shannon. Thorp received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958 and worked at MIT from 1959 to 1961. He was a professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982 at the University of California, Irvine.
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Customers find this book to be a fun and informative autobiography, with one noting it covers his life from childhood to the present. The writing style is well-crafted and easy to understand, making it accessible to all readers. They appreciate Thorp's intellectual achievements and consider him one of the greatest applied mathematicians, describing him as a remarkable person.

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151 customers mention content, 135 positive, 16 negative

Customers find the book very interesting and fun to read, with great lessons throughout. One customer notes it's an excellent read for both investment and life, while another describes it as the most entertaining book written by a mathematician.

Great book about a very interesting lad. Thorpe has been around and the stories are informative and fun to read.Read more

...It is great read and highly recommendedRead more

This book was an excellent read. It hits on many topics, such as gambling and investing, but ties them all in with mathematics....Read more

Excellent Book.Read more

26 customers mention informative, 24 positive, 2 negative

Customers find the book informative, describing it as an interesting autobiography that covers Ed Thorp's life from childhood to the present.

An interesting biography from a smart and curious mathemetician who helped launch the modern hedge fund industry.Read more

This is the best autobiography I have read. It combines history with human emotion and practical lessons learned....Read more

Very interesting autobiography about a fascinating person!Read more

...Thorpe has been around and the stories are informative and fun to read.Read more

26 customers mention story, 25 positive, 1 negative

Customers enjoy the stories in the book, particularly Edward Thorp's life experiences, with one customer highlighting the engaging narrative of his childhood.

A great story ruined by the egotistical self centred author He should've stuck to maths & statsRead more

What an awesome life story.Read more

Great book and story!Read more

“A Man for All Markets” is at its core a captivating memoir on how Professor Thorp managed to acquire a fortune estimated at around $800-million....Read more

19 customers mention writing style, 16 positive, 3 negative

Customers praise the writing style of the book.

...fundamentals and gambling theory need look no further than this well written, easy to understand life lived understanding and extrapolating market...Read more

...The book is very well written and explains complex concepts easily. I highly recommend this book to all....Read more

Well written book. Made me think and posed excellent ideas. I recommend it to anyone interested in markets. The part on blackjack is very helpfulRead more

...A well-written book that you'll enjoyRead more

18 customers mention readability, 16 positive, 2 negative

Customers find the book very readable and easy to understand, with one customer noting it is the best read about a pioneer.

...Written in a very clear and precise style, it's a remarkbale biography of an individual, who in his work was far ahead of the time, again and...Read more

...that goes over the main aspects of his life in a concise and readable style....Read more

I enjoyed this book. Easy readRead more

...Highly readable.Read more

16 customers mention intellectual, 16 positive, 0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's intellectual content, praising the author's brilliant mind and intellectual curiosity.

...Ed Thorpe is a great man. He is a brilliant mind.Read more

Well written book. Made me think and posed excellent ideas. I recommend it to anyone interested in markets. The part on blackjack is very helpfulRead more

An amazing journey filled with life lessons. A beautiful mind. Shows the limitless boundaries of what the mind can achieveRead more

...Curiosity, enthusiasm and thoroughness of author are rare to find. Saying goes that curiosity kills the cat....Read more

14 customers mention intelligent, 14 positive, 0 negative

Customers find the author highly intelligent, noting his expertise as one of the greatest applied mathematicians.

...Both were professors and highly intelligent and they keep reminding us of this. The book is partly very impressive and partly boring....Read more

...Remarkable what a very intelligent person can/could achieve...Read more

An interesting biography from a smart and curious mathemetician who helped launch the modern hedge fund industry.Read more

...Edward Thorp is a fascinating genius....Read more

13 customers mention person, 13 positive, 0 negative

Customers describe Ed Thorpe as a remarkable and amazing person, with one customer noting he remains vibrant in his 80s.

...Definitely a brilliant man and gifted thinker who lead a very interesting life. But the book lacks substance....Read more

Incredible book., Thorp has to be among the amazing people of our our lifetime. Darwin BahmRead more

Edward Thorp is a remarkable man - a polymath of science, computing, mathematics, and finance - and I have looked up to him for a large portion of...Read more

...It interesting as a biography of a famous investor. They are normal people with a touch of genius in a particular area....Read more

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Dennis Littrell
Extraordinary
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2017
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

“A Man for All Markets” is at its core a captivating memoir on how Professor Thorp managed to acquire a fortune estimated at around $800-million. It’s dense, it’s detailed, it’s engagingly written, it’s a lot of fun to read and it’s full of valuable information. I would love to have read the chapters on markets some years ago when I was an active trader. I’d have made a lot more money!

How did he do it? “Education,” he explains in a later chapter.

He either taught himself or he learned from others. Indeed Chapter 1 is entitled “Loving to Learn.” He began as a poor boy in Lomita, California delivering newspapers in the morning and in the afternoon. He got into UCLA and graduated with a degree in physics and then went on to grad school to study mathematics. He became fascinated with challenges, most famously with the gambling card game, blackjack or twenty-one. He devised a point count system that, coupled with his ability to remember cards, allowed him to beat the casinos at their own game.

And then he wrote a bestselling book, “Beat the Dealer” showing others how it could be done. I read that book when it came out in the early Sixties and was fascinated. Because my memory is only average I ended up playing poker instead of blackjack--but that’s another story.

Following up on his success at twenty-one, Thorp, along with Claude Shannon, designed and built a mechanical and electrical device that allowed them to gain an advantage in roulette by predicting with some proficiency approximately where the bouncing ball would end up. That was quite a coup especially considering that it happened fifty-some years ago.

This takes us through the first ten chapters. Then in Chapter 11: “Wall Street: The Greatest Casino on Earth” Thorp turns his attention to the financial markets. The titles of the next 14 chapters not only outline the story but could serve as something like a syllabus for a graduate course in investing. Viz., “Front-Running, The Quantitative Revolution, Swindles and Hazards, Buying Low, Selling High, Hedging Your Bets, Compound Growth, Beat Most Investors by Indexing, Asset Allocation and Wealth Management, etc.”

There’s an illuminating chapter on financial crises and lessons not learned. Thorp concludes with Chapter 30 “Thoughts,” which I found fascinating. There are also five appendices, three on inflation and the dollar, historical returns, and the performance of his fantastically successful hedge fund, Princeton Newport Partners.

I think it is important in accounting for Thorp’s extraordinary success to realize that he was very good with people and formed valuable friendships with knowledgeable and gifted persons including the afore-mentioned Claude Shannon, Warren Buffet and others. Additionally, his curiosity and love of challenges took him places others couldn’t go. Finally, there was the loving support of his very talented wife, Vivian. If I were giving out advice on how to be successful in this world I would say first pick your spouse wisely.

Also, Thorp was thrifty. On page 86 we learn that when he was playing blackjack in Las Vegas he would call his wife collect and to save money would ask for “’Edward __ Thorp,’ the middle initial being a code we had devised to tell how many thousands of dollars we were ahead or, if the initial came before ‘Edward,’ how many behind…” “After hearing the name of the person being called, Vivian would politely tell the operator that Mr. Thorp ‘wasn’t here at the moment.’”

I think it is a good lesson to understand that not only is a penny saved a penny earned but it’s worth more than that because what’s saved is untaxed and the money can be invested. Thorp elaborates on the value of thrift in building wealth elsewhere in the book especially on page 269.

I want to say that I have a personal affinity for both this book and its author because of some similarities in the lives we have led. For those interested see my recently published memoir “If I Had Been a Better Man.”

Okay now for some tidbits from the amazing professor of gambling and markets.

“Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut were at a party given by a billionaire…Vonnegut asked Heller how it felt to know that their host might have made more money in one day than Heller’s “Catch-22” since it was written.” Heller replied that “he had something the rich man could never have.” Vonnegut wondered what that might be, and Heller answered, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” (p. 213)

Thorp actually discovered in 1991 that Bernie Madoff’s trades were fakes and that he was running a Ponzi scheme. See pages 213-219.

A joke: “…pronounced MADE-off, as in “with your money.” (p. 217)

If you haven’t heard of the so-called “secretary/marriage problem” in math turn to page 224. The problem is when to say yes to get the best candidate. Once you say no you usually don’t get another chance and you may find the remaining candidates not as good. On the other hand, if you say yes too soon you might miss the best choice.

Thorp’s answer to high frequency trading: “a small federal tax…a few cents a share…” (p. 231)

On the crisis in funding for the California university system: “To starve education is to eat our seed corn. No tax today, no technology tomorrow.” (p. 341)

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

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Almir
Good reading material
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2018
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Read full summary of this book on my blog: imeducatingmyself.com/a-man-for-all-markets-from-las-vegas-to-wall-street-how-i-beat-the-dealer-and-the-market-by-edward-o-thorp-book-review

The life of the Edward was quite interesting, and full of ups and downs – but in the end it turn out be everything good. I really enjoyed reading this book, it does contain a lot of useful material which we can apply to our lives.

I bought this book because was interested to learn about Edward’s investing strategy. And there are useful material when it comes to investing, but it’s not for absolute beginners. If you don’t know anything about investing, than you might find this book a bit confusing. I like how he played the both sides of investing; buying and shorting stocks. Even though I have to say that I’m not a fan of shorting stocks, it does require a lot of analysis and experience to get it right; I’ve done it couple of times, and it didn’t turn right for me.

But in the end, since he had been in contact with Warren Buffett, he does apply the long-term value investing. And when you go through a lot of methods of trading, majority of investors would agree that this is the best way. But, nevertheless, it does require a lot of research and investigating about particular stock(s) in which you are going for the long-term.

I wasn’t very interested in that part of the book that talks about Blackjack, because I’m not interested in playing cards, or anything similar. If you are someone who is interested in cards, you can find useful information on how Edward developed his card counting method.

One thing about the gambling I like that, he didn’t end up addicted to gambling, and it didn’t destroyed his family. That is very important that he knew when to stop playing and move to something else. It was successful experiment, and that was all.

One thing that got me, positively of course, is his life with Vivian. The greatest thing that can happen to anyone is to have great life companion. Of course, I believe that they’ve had some problems, that is normal – but overall, everything went well for a long time. And from that I conclude that two great minds can make a lot of things possible.

This book is also good for those who are looking to motivate them self in life. Maybe your’re not interested in card ( I know I’m not), nor investing, but just getting through the book and getting familiar with Edward’s life, and how he was determined to succeed in life – I know my motivation was raising up reading the book.

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Matthew Morine
A Great Look Into Risk
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
You would think that this book was boring, but it certainly was not. Edward Thorp is a fascinating genius. I am not even sure why this book came on my radar, maybe because of Nassim Taleb, but whatever the reason, I am thankful that I read it. The author did some amazing things like develop the first wearable computer and even created a system to beat the dealer at Blackjack. He ended up running a Hedge Fund. He was a successful trader for numerous years and now spends his time in giving back to worthy projects. The book is good because of the lessons he gives throughout the text. There are a lot of little pieces of wisdom throughout. Here is one. "This damaged his self-esteem, which, as I came to understand later, is an absolute no-no in human relationships unless you do not mind creating an inveterate enemy." This is a fact of life. Here are two great questions. "None of this would have happened if, as I wish I had done, I had asked myself beforehand, If you do this, what do you want to happen? Moreover, If you do this, what do you think will happen? I would not have liked either answer. These two questions became valuable guides for me in the future." Before we act, it is wise to ask these questions. Often he takes a story and gives a principle like this. "In the abstract, life is a mixture of chance and choice. Chance can be thought of like the cards you are dealt in life. The choice is how you play them." There are many other quotes of wisdom in the book. This book might not be for everyone, but in life, it is best to read widely and apply your thinking to ministry. Taking an interconnected approach to church leadership can have vast results.

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steve
Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great book if you are really into investing with a historic view.

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Mag
All seasons indeed!
Reviewed in Australia on March 24, 2017
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Love the book, in awe of what Ed has done. Easy read too.

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Wouter Gazendam
Very good book
Reviewed in the Netherlands on March 30, 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Mr Thorp writes very engaging. He reminds me of Richard Feynman; he looks at the world with an open and scientific view. Added with a bit of mischief.

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Cliente Amazon
Excelente livro”
Reviewed in Brazil on May 26, 2024
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Um livro instigante. Leitura não muito fácil.

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Tobias K.
Gain new insights into investing and gambling
Reviewed in Germany on May 23, 2021
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I have read quite a few books on investing, finance, its history and especially the financial crisis of 2007-08. Nevertheless did this book make it into the top five of my favorites.

Edward Thorp has a very quantative and rational mind yet tells his story in a very interesting way, that leads to the book being read in a great flow.

For someone with some experience in the field, not everything was new information, but it was still nice to be inspired to think about these constructs again.

I really enjoyed the dive into the world of gambling, that the author exploited. Making a link between gambling and investing were new thoughts for me, which can help investors making better decisions whilst looking for edges.

I will recommend this book to friends.

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An avid reader
A Man for All Markets
Reviewed in France on July 9, 2019
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Excellent illustration on how real understanding of mathematics and probability apply to gambling and finance and real life issues, all written in a clear direct style. If like me you are an engineer who after a later MBA went into business, you will not be able to put the book down. I’m glad Thorp validates my passive low cost stock market investment strategy. He personally made a lot of low risk money by playing the inefficiencies in the market - so he actually significantly contributed to making the market more efficient by arbitraging the prices to a more correct level...

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Gain new insights into investing and gambling

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