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Does anyone know of a good introduction to the theory of martingales and betting strategies from the point of view of statistics and/or probability theory? I'm looking for something basic, with lots of examples. Thanks.

edited Sep 29 2010 at 16:24

Steve Huntsman

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3 revisions, 2 users
Chris Conidis 100%

Community wiki! Go! – Harry Gindi Dec 11 2009 at 1:18

By the way, the downvote was not me. I flagged this for community wiki though. So don't gather to lynch me just yet. – Harry Gindi Dec 11 2009 at 1:23

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I've converted this question to wiki, but please make such questions community wiki in the future. The general rule is that if it wouldn't make sense for people to earn reputation for their answers (as in the case of references, where the reference should really be getting the reputation, rather than the person who answered), then the question should be community wiki. – Anton Geraschenko♦ Dec 11 2009 at 1:51

Are you sure you meant from the point of view of statistics, rather than probability? What does that exactly mean? – Ori Gurel-Gurevich Dec 11 2009 at 4:37

Yes, by statistics I meant probability. I just want the standard definition of martingale, because I'm coming at these things from the point of view of computability theory and algorithmic randomness, where the definition that we use (I am pretty sure) is slightly different than the standard one used in probability theory. Thanks to everyone who has replied/commented so far. – Chris Conidis Dec 11 2009 at 11:44

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Steve Huntsman · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-11 01:20:48Z UTC

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I don't know about statistics per se but the best introduction to martingales period is Williams' Probability with Martingales:

http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Martingales-Cambridge-Mathematical-Textbooks/dp/0521406056

answered Dec 11 2009 at 1:20

Steve Huntsman

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	I'll second that. Excellent book. (I have taught from it.) – Harald Hanche-Olsen Dec 11 2009 at 1:48
	I'll third that. Excellent book. (I have learned from it.) – Kevin O'Bryant Jan 5 2010 at 13:45
	For a more statistics-y text, go to Williams' "Weighing the odds". – Kevin O'Bryant Jan 5 2010 at 13:46

Alekk · Answer 2 · 2009-12-11 02:07:46Z UTC

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no doubt that Probability with Martingales is excellent, but I am not sure that this is a very satisfying book for someone interested in "the point of view of statistics".

answered Dec 11 2009 at 2:07

Alekk

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	Fair point, although it's not clear to me just what the original poster meant by "the point of view of statistics" - hopefully this will be clarified. BTW, your answer should perhaps be a comment on Steve's rather than a separate one? – Yemon Choi Dec 11 2009 at 8:54
	@Yemon: He doesn't have the reputation to comment yet. – Harald Hanche-Olsen Dec 11 2009 at 13:18

jrshipley · Answer 3 · 2009-12-11 04:52:26Z UTC

I haven't read it, but I saw Glenn Shafer give a talk on his and Vladimir Vovk's game theoretical approach to probability. It could be an interesting/more intuitive approach than the usual measure theoretic approaches. They discuss martingales in several chapters of their book and I'm certain there's lots of applications/examples especially from finance. Might be worth a look: http://www.probabilityandfinance.com/chapters/toc.html

Yuri Bakhtin · Answer 4 · 2010-01-05 02:57:30Z UTC

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Shiryaev's "Probability" is an excellent source.

answered Jan 5 2010 at 2:57

Yuri Bakhtin

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PeterR · Answer 5 · 2010-09-29 17:47:26Z UTC

Have a look at "The Doctrine of Chances: Probabilistic Aspects of Gambling" by Stewart Ethier http://www.springer.com/mathematics/probability/book/978-3-540-78782-2

Lots of examples related to just about every casino game you've ever heard of, and a few you have not.

Martingales and Betting Strategies

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