Coming from a Calvinistic country I cannot be but surprised by the way Asians gamble: football, cock fights, the Shanghai stock market, or village fairs: often an estimated month's salary is put at risk. Even the Muslims and the Buddhist monks gamble. In the Las Vegas of the East, Macanese civil servants are only allowed to gamble in the week of the Lunar New Year, just to protect the government.

The Chinese are considered the most passionate gamblers (mah-jong, the game of luck and skill livens up not only rainy weekends, but even weddings and funerals, and may account for the high acceptance of gambling in Chinese society), but according to the author of this book, no comprehensive study of this subject has yet been written.

Mr. Lam filled the gap with this slim volume. Mr. Lam is a marketing and gambling consultant rather than a psychologist, and his "observations" are rather empirical. Still, in quite a few cases they match my own, and I found a few new nuggets of wisdom to match.

According to Mr. Lam the reasons for gambling are manifold, including for entertainment, for money, or because you get to know your friends better under stress. He argues that the Chinese perceive chance (or luck) to be much more influential in their lives than Westerners. However, they also suffer from control illusion more frequently, meaning that they think they can influence their luck with superstitious behaviour, hence the preference for baccarat vs. slot machines. Interestingly, gambling is more populair among those segments of society where people have gods they think they can influence (primarily Taoists and Buddhists). And I was surprised by Mr. Lam's reference to 3 decades of studies that Chinese have less accurate probability judgement than non-Chinese.

All-in-all an interesting read. You can find some more info on the author's website on http://www.desmondl.com. ( )