Table of Contents

IntroductionChapter One: The Idea of ChanceThe age of faith: The origins of chance Chance and determinism The age of reason: The birth of probability The age of chance: Chance and modernity Chapter Two: The Pursuit of ChanceGambling and Divination The Seventeenth Century Explosion The Nineteenth Century: Playing with numbers Postscript: the vortex of vice Chapter Three: Playgrounds - A Map of the Modern Gambling SitesModern Gambling The Map: A Typology of GamblingThe sites: PlaygroundsChapter Four: The Experience of PlayThe Experience of PlayThe Categories of Play The Varieties of Gambling Experience Chapter Five: The Magical-Religious WorldviewThe Rejection of Probability The Magical Worldview: Participation The Religious Worldview: Transcendence Epilogue

Reviews

'The Age of Chance is a wonderful book, scholarly and at the same time compulsive reading' - Heather Worth, University of Auckland

'The Age of Chance is a wonderful book, scholarly and at the same time compulsive reading'
- Heather Worth, University of Auckland'...one of the great strengths of The Age of Chance is that it reads well and is certainly a cover to cover read.''...a comprehensive and intriguing look at what actually happens when we gamble and why gambling is so popular. Reviewing this book now, more than ten years after first being published, shows that it’s certainly a worthwhile read because, at the risk of sounding cliché, it’s passing the test of time.'
4/5 Stars-www.casinoonline.co.uk