The Eudaemonic Pie


The Eudaemonic Pie is a non-fiction book about gambling by American author Thomas A. Bass. The book was initially published in April 1985 by Houghton Mifflin.

Overview

The book focuses on a group of University of California, Santa Cruz, physics graduate students who in the late 1970s and early 1980s designed and employed miniaturized computers, hidden in specially modified platform soled shoes, to help predict the outcome of casino roulette games. The players knew, presumably from the earlier work of Shannon and Thorp, that by capturing the state of the ball and wheel and taking into account peculiarities of the particular wheels being played they could increase their odds of selecting a winning number to gain a 44 percent advantage over the casinos.

British edition

A British edition was published under the title The Newtonian Casino.

Sequel

The major players in The Eudaemonic Pie are also featured in a sequel by the same author, The Predictors, about their subsequent careers in the world of finance.