Could be MUCH shorter

Oddly the narrator repeatedly refers to the accompanying PDF which I could not find. I emailed support about this.

Nevertheless this was a fine book describing the Kelly formula for investment/betting decisions. This remarkably simple formula is powerful, widely applicable, and easy to understand. In fact, it is so easy to understand most of this book is unnecessary to understanding the formula. Much of the book is very mildly interesting stories about shady bookies and investment managers that have little, or nothing, to do with the Kelly Formula along with various other investment/betting strategies having nothing to do with the Kelly Formula.

I was not impressed with the presentation of the St. Petersburg Paradox. It is well described, but the underlying reason for the paradox seems to be completely missed. This is important because the book later discusses the differences between using the arithmetic verse geometric means. The important take away from the St. Petersburg Paradox is that any mean is worthless if the variance is too large. This variance problem is touched on elsewhere in the book, but it is not appropriately highlighted.

The narration is really excellent.

I enjoyed this book but it would have been better if much more focused on simply understanding the Kelly Formula.

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TL;dr Kelly's Criteria

The book has an amazing story to tell but waltzes around it for the first few chapters. It introduces great historical figures such as Shannon and Thorp early on to dazzle everyone about their adventures into gambling. Only a few hours into the book do you get introduced to Kelly's formula. Although Poundstone and Arthur do their best to illustrate the elegance of the formula, it would only serve better with the PDF at hand. It's quite hard for someone to grasp how fast 2 to the 11th power really accumulates first hand.

Overall, great story and good performance. A must read for anyone into money management.

1 person found this helpful

A must read or in this case a must listen

Biography of finding the perfect investment. a brief history of bright people and the association of money putting it to work correctly.

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Complete

A little long, but complete briefing of real (important) financial market for comum investor.

Fascinating and gripping

Mobs, Fixed horse races, hedge funds losing billions in a few months. Fascinating.

I wish it had went over how to use the Kelly criterion which is what I came for but the story and reasoning in this book is incredible.

Good content, pleasing narrator

However, if you listen carefully you can catch several pronunciation/reading errors. Not a big deal but just something to watch for.

Very entertaining. Also leads to much further research

I really enjoyed this book. It references most of the important figures that occupy the Venmo diagram of quantitative finance, gambling, and statistics/probability theory. Really cool listen.

Kelly Criterion

This is the moost important thing to learn when investing or gambling: learn how to never go bust!

Great story. Small pronunciation quirks

I am used to "arithmetic" as a noun being pronounced differently from arithmetic as an adjective

Incredible

A surprisingly varied and engaging story that connects wildly different ideas. A great story for any day