Probability was a relative latecomer to mathematics. Although people had been gambling with astragali (knucklebones) and dice for millennia, it was not until the French mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat started corresponding in the 1650s that any rigorous analysis was made of ‘chance’ events. Like the release from a pent-up dam, probability has since flooded fields as diverse as finance, astronomy and law — not to mention gambling.