CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Risk of ruin

Concept in gambling, insurance, and finance

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 16, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Risk of ruin is a concept in gambling, insurance, and finance relating to the likelihood of losing all one's investment capital or extinguishing one's bankroll below the minimum for further play. For instance, if someone bets all their money on a simple coin toss, the risk of ruin is 50%. In a multiple-bet scenario, risk of ruin accumulates with the number of bets: each play increases the risk, and persistent play ultimately yields the stochastic certainty of gambler's ruin.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Risk of ruin” as concept in gambling, insurance, and finance. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 79-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Risk, ruin and Concept can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as concept in gambling, insurance, and finance. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2026.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Risk of ruin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Risk of ruin primary sources, Risk of ruin archive and Risk research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Risk of ruin”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Risk of ruin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.