A Man for All Markets
From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market
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A Man for All Markets
Narrated by:
Edward O. Thorp
Buy Now for £16.99
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Narrated by:
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Edward O. Thorp
About this listen
A child of the Great Depression, legendary mathematician Edward O. Thorp invented card counting, proving the seemingly impossible: that you could beat the dealer at the blackjack table. As a result he launched a gambling renaissance. His remarkable success—and mathematically unassailable method—caused such an uproar that casinos altered the rules of the game to thwart him and the legions he inspired. They barred him from their premises, even put his life in jeopardy. Nonetheless, gambling was forever changed.
Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to “the biggest casino in the world”: Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudy Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and, to beat the game of roulette, invented, with Claude Shannon, the world’s first wearable computer.
Here, for the first time, Thorp tells the story of what he did, how he did it, his passions and motivations, and the curiosity that has always driven him to disregard conventional wisdom and devise game-changing solutions to seemingly insoluble problems. An intellectual thrill ride, replete with practical wisdom that can guide us all in uncertain financial waters, A Man for All Markets is an instant classic—a book that challenges its readers to think logically about a seemingly irrational world.
Includes a PDF of appendices from the book.
Advance praise for A Man for All Markets
“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
Listeners also enjoyed...
Spoilt by the performance
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Another good life story
Talk about an interesting life.
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a book that changed my life.
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interesting biography of an interesting Man
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Fortunately this book is perfectly fit for audio so when I discovered that it is available, I listened it from the beginning to the end. The author is reading it himself - this is usually a warning for me, but Thorp's performance is excellent also in this...
It is an interesting life story of an amazing mind.
Some lessons/advice anyone can take from Thorp is to "check for yourself" and be sceptic, if something is too good to be true. Seize the opportunities, but at the same time money and fame is not everything. Know also when enough is enough, and don't forget to live your life and spend time with your loved ones.
He has beaten the casinos in Black Jack and roulette - the latter with a garage-made wearable computer in the 1960's (the first if its kind), with the great Claude Shannon, father of Information Theory himself. They used the hidden device together in the casinos - as "Shannon had a large foot, so he operated the timer button with his big toe" (not an exact citation). He wrote a book (Beat the Dealer) on how to win against the House, so everyone else could do it... He invented and used the Black-Scholes option pricing formula independently 2 years before the Nobel laureates first published it, but this did not bother him.
He is one of the very few people I would surely trust with my money to invest, if he still had his market neutral hedge fund.
Respect.
Amazing man, interesting story and life lessons
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