Since I lack any experience in writing an exposé, I write as I tell it and the Berliner describes it aptly as “free speech”:
The work is primarily about gambling, playing for money, in other words, playing for money. I drew the motivation for writing it from everyday occurrences. These everyday occurrences are as follows: Fascination with gambling everywhere. Hands off, guaranteed. Gambling means ruin and downfall. Scepticism and fascination, then. But in general: a huge interest. Whenever someone asks me what I do and I answer with “playing”, one question follows the next.
I know all the questions by now. Yet they are asked. So surely there must be an interest in answering them? My intuition tells me that the questions are not asked out of pure politeness. Because, as I said, question follows question.
Then I remembered the Brechtian ladder: Speak – Write – Silence. And since I will be condemned to silence one day anyway, without resentment or grief, the decision was not too difficult: write down everything that people want to know from experience. Write it down.
So that’s what happened. Some of the content is already clear from what has been said. If you still have further questions, I’ll try to explain a little more: My successful life as a player has a rock-solid basis. That is mathematics. Are you wincing? Unfortunately, it can’t be done without it. The winning strategies in all games are based on mathematics. At least in my entire career I have not managed 8I hope not only for lack of trying) to read any further developments in the coffee grounds. Nor have I consulted a fortune teller and I am not a lucky person.
My winnings, which amount to several million, have only been made by applying mathematical formulas or laws. So the basis is largely the calculation of probabilities. And as I can explain with several examples, there are numerous misjudgements. These are in fact partly illusions that one succumbs to.
It is also comprehensively motivated why almost everyone actually starts to feel uncomfortable as soon as probabilities come into play. This is somehow against human nature. One strives to feel safe, even more so in our latitudes.
The games that appear in the book, most of which were also run by myself, are:
