… very deep in cards and dice; […] I am inclined to suspect that our women of fashion will also learn to divert themselves with this polite practice of laying wagers. […] In a word, if this once becomes fashionable among the ladies, we shall … Such betting tradition takes its roots in the fashion for speculation that emerged at the end of the seventeenth century with the development of life insurance. ‘Life insurance was largely an urban phenomenon’ 2 and the growth of the London insurance market was associated with the expansion of English foreign trade in the second half of the seventeenth century. It was part of the remarkable …