Book excerpt: Investigates the paradox of why a large proportion of the population engages in some form of gambling, despite the knowledge that they are most likely to lose, and even when they know that the gambling industry makes huge profits. Do gamblers simply accept their losses as fate or do they believe that they will be able to overcome the negative odds in some miraculous way? best the systematic losses cannot be avoided, are the least likely to stop gambling. Detailed analysis of actual gambling behaviour has shown that gamblers are the victims of a variety of cognitive illusions, which lead them to believe that the general statistical rules determining the probability of loss do not apply to them as individuals.