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In the movie Trading Places, the Duke brothers explain to Eddie Murphy the essence of their investment business. Murphy shoots back, “You two sound like a couple of bookies to me.”

He’s right; fundamentally, it’s the same idea. Now Bloomberg has a story about one Wall Street’s firm’s growing interest in gambling. Cantor Fitzgerald has a Cantor Gaming unit that’s involved in sports books.

Bloomberg writes:

The firm is seeking Nevada state approval for field tests of a handheld device for playing digital card games and roulette in a casino's public spaces, such as pools and nightclubs. Officials of closely held Cantor Fitzgerald say it could eventually be used anywhere.

It makes sense for them to be involved in this. Basically, their business is math. I believe that I once read that the entire field of statistics has always been driven by gambling.

"It's all about processing," said Lee Amaitis, 57, head of Cantor Gaming, from London. "All you're doing is math. If you have an engine that can drive random generating results, you can process bets."

Posted by edelfenbein at March 19, 2008 1:06 PM