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摘要
摘要
Although financial markets often try to distance themselves from gambling, the two factors have far more in common than usually thought. When, historically, there were no financial institutions such as banks, lotteries constituted the ways by which expensive items were disposed of, and governments raised money quickly. Gambling tables fulfilled roles that venture capital and banking do today. 'Gamblers' created clearinghouses and sustained liquidity. When those gamblers bet on price distributions in futures markets, they were redefined as 'speculators'. Today they are called 'hedge fund managers' or 'bankers'. Though the names have changed, the actions undertaken have essentially stayed the same. This book shows how discussion on 'chance', 'risk', 'gambling', 'insurance', and 'speculation' illuminates where societies stood, where we are today, and where we may be heading.
目录
Preface | p. xiii |
Acknowledgments | p. xvii |
1 From Religion to Risk Management: What to Do When Facing Uncertainty? | p. 1 |
Origins of Lasting Prejudice | p. 3 |
Volatile Beliefs | p. 5 |
From Religion to Risk, from Lots to Betting | p. 6 |
Chance and Providence: Upstairs, Downstairs | p. 13 |
Conclusion | p. 15 |
2 Anything Wrong with Gambling as a Pastime? | p. 17 |
Which shows how false ideas about risk, gambling, and pastimes gain currency. | |
What Did Gambling Have to Do with Military Readiness? | p. 18 |
Prohibitions on New Ways of Having Fun | p. 20 |
English Prohibitions on Poor People's Pastimes | p. 21 |
If Not Cockfights, How About a Drink? | p. 24 |
Secular Theories Condemning Gambling | p. 26 |
If There Are No Circuses for the Masses, How to Calm Them Down? | p. 28 |
How Did the United States Come to Prohibit Drinking? | p. 29 |
The 1906 Act and Since: Familiar Patterns | p. 31 |
The Change in English Attitudes and Laws | p. 32 |
Law and Gambling in the New World | p. 33 |
Conclusion | p. 35 |
3 Are You Rich? Risk-Taking and Gambling, or the Leapfrogging Instinct | p. 38 |
If You Are Not Rich, What Do You Do? | p. 40 |
Facts | p. 44 |
The Attraction of Big Prizes | p. 44 |
The Poor and Those Falling Behind | p. 45 |
Reversal to Fortune | p. 49 |
Statistical Analysis: Correcting Its Pitfalls | p. 52 |
Are Gamblers Reckless or Criminals? | p. 54 |
What Do Winners Do with the Money? | p. 59 |
Compulsive Gamblers: An Aside | p. 62 |
Conclusion | p. 66 |
4 Betting on Futures and Creating Prices | p. 67 |
Which shows how conventional wisdom about futures markets was often wrong, and the relationship between these markets and gambling and insurance. | |
False Ideas: Bad Laws, Bad Policies | p. 68 |
Back to Basics | p. 70 |
The Tulipmania That Never Was: Part1 | p. 74 |
More on Insurance and Gambling | p. 76 |
Legal Confusions and Political Debates: Property Rights and Prices | p. 77 |
Stabilizing and Destabilizing Speculations | p. 81 |
Telecommunications and Speculation; or, How to Outlaw the Competition | p. 84 |
Gamblers and Speculators: More Confusions | p. 86 |
5 Gambling as Banking: Poker, Junk Bonds, and Central Banks | p. 90 |
Which shows how gambling was banking and how it is linked to the development of clearinghouses, central banking, and creating wealth in a country. | |
Gambling Is Not a Zero-Sum game | p. 91 |
Preventing Financial Intermediation by Law: Protecting Noblemen | p. 98 |
The Volatile Road to Democratized Captial | p. 100 |
Volatile Ranks and Taking Chances | p. 101 |
When the Rich and Poor Intermingle, Lessons for the John Laws | p. 102 |
The Tulipmania That Never Was: Part2 | p. 105 |
Gambling in Venice | p. 108 |
Banking on Gamblers | p. 111 |
From Poker Banks to Clearinghouses | p. 116 |
Poker Banks and Junk Bonds | p. 118 |
From Banking on Gambling to Gambling on Central Banking | p. 121 |
6 Lottery Is a Taxation, and Heav'n Be Prais'd, It Is Easily Rais'd | p. 124 |
Lotteries and Public Finance | p. 131 |
Lottery Finance by English Governments | p. 133 |
Lottery Finance in the New World: Origins of Investment Banking | p. 138 |
From Lotteries to Banking | p. 140 |
Toward Prohibition | p. 141 |
Lotteries as Public Finance in Canada | p. 142 |
The Rebirth of Lotteries | p. 142 |
If Not Lotteries, Then Sweepstakes | p. 145 |
Gambling Today in America | p. 147 |
7 Politics and Prohibitions; or, What's a Good Tax Anyway? | p. 150 |
Lotteries as a Regressive Tax: An Irrelevant Argument | p. 151 |
Theories of Taxation without Foundations | p. 153 |
How Do Governments Spend the Money? | p. 155 |
Gamblers at Opera's Gates | p. 157 |
Legalizing Gambling to Bring Prosperity | p. 161 |
What Is a Good Tax; or, Who Guards the Guardians? | p. 166 |
Impacts of Prohibition | p. 168 |
Prohibitions in the United States and Elsewhere | p. 169 |
Other Impacts of Prohibition in the United States | p. 172 |
Taxing Foreigners | p. 173 |
Prohibitions in the United Kingdom and the United States | p. 175 |
Why Do American Sports Leagues Oppose Sports Betting and Online Gambling? | p. 179 |
Sports Betting Update: The Donaghy File | p. 182 |
Online Gambling | p. 186 |
Problems and Solutions | p. 189 |
8 How Gamblers and Risk-Takers Correct the Future | p. 194 |
Betting on Ideas, and Matters of Trial and Error | p. 198 |
How Did Some Societies Come to Tolerate Risk-Takers and Gamblers? | p. 200 |
Capital Markets and Models of Society | p. 204 |
Natural Resources Are No Mothers of Invention | p. 206 |
Creating Wealth and the Movement of the Vital Few | p. 208 |
Happiness and Luck | p. 210 |
Appendix 1 Gambling and Risk-Taking: The Leapfrogging Instinct | p. 213 |
Introduction | p. 213 |
Gambling and the Leapfrogging Instinct | p. 214 |
Why Do Lotteries Have Multiple Prizes? | p. 218 |
Insurance: Preventing the Falling Behind | p. 220 |
Stopping Rules: How Much to Gamble? How Much to Insure? | p. 222 |
Risk-Taking and Uncertainty: Leaping into the Unknown | p. 223 |
Doing Their Best: What "Maximization" Means | p. 231 |
Risk, Uncertainty, and Information | p. 232 |
Wealth, Risk, and Uncertainty | p. 233 |
Stability, Redistribution, and Progressive Taxation of Wealth | p. 235 |
Comparisons with Other Approaches | p. 239 |
Conclusion | p. 249 |
Appendix 2 Human Nature and the Civilizing Process | p. 251 |
Which briefly compares various views of human nature. | |
Bets on Ideas | p. 251 |
Creativity, Uncertainty, and Risk-Taking | p. 253 |
Appendix 3 A Statistical Profile of Gamblers | p. 257 |
Quebee Data | p. 257 |
Canadian Data | p. 260 |
How to Correct for Undeclared Lottery Expenditures | p. 266 |
Results | p. 268 |
Conclusion | p. 271 |
Notes | p. 273 |
Bibliography | p. 309 |
Name Index | p. 325 |
Subject Index | p. 332 |