David F.N. Games, Gods and Gambling: A History of Probability and Statistical Ideas

New York: Hafner Pub. Co, 1962. — 306 p.The development of gambling techniques led to the beginning of modern statistics, and this absorbing history illustrates the science's rise with vignettes from the lives of Galileo, Fermat, Pascal, and others. Fascinating allusions to the classics, archaeology, biography, poetry, and fiction endow this volume with universal appeal.