In general. every gamble of this type, in which the possible gains or losses are different
amounts of money, can be represented as a random variable X with a specified probability
distribution. It is to be understood that a positive value of X represents an actual monetary
gain to the person from the gamble, and that a negative value of X represents a loss (which is considered a negative gain). The expected gain from a gamble X is then simply E(X). Although two different gambles X and Y' may have the same expected gain, a person who is forced to accept one of the two gambles would typically prefer one of them to the other, For example, consider two gambles X and Y for which the gains have the following probability distributions: