On the Edge

or built an election model. I still feel more at home in a casino than at a political convention. I have the numbers of dozens of top poker players in my contacts list—but few people who work in politics or government. In fact, even my decision to start FiveThirtyEight, which I founded in 2008 and worked for until 2023, was an unexpected consequence of a law passed by Congress that ended my three-year tenure as a professional poker player. So with this book, I’m getting back to my roots. I’ve spent most of the

past three years immersed in a world that I call the River. The River is a sprawling ecosystem of like-minded people that includes everyone from low-stakes poker pros just trying to grind out a living to crypto kings and venture-capital billionaires. It is a way of thinking and a mode of life. People don’t know very much about the River, but they should. Most Riverians aren’t rich and powerful. But rich and powerful people are disproportionately likely to be Riverians compared to the rest of the population.