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Can you give me some sort of timeframe to look at?

I'm assuming it was pre-internet, it should in a book?

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Timeframe for which question?

I'm just guessing here, but hopefully if I'm wrong, someone can name an earlier instance which will be valuable.

In any case, I'll try to answer. I'm not sure that the first application of Kelly to poker was pre-Internet, at least depending on when you consider the "start" of the Internet to be. There may be discussions of applying Kelly to poker in the old rec.gambling and rec.gambling.poker newsgroups that pre-date any association in the printed literature. You can search Google Groups if you want in order to confirm or reject this hypothesis.

The first printed reference to applying Kelly to poker I know of is in an article by Bernie Lugar in the November, 1995 "Intelligent Gambler" newsletter called "Kelly Plays Poker!" Basically, the gist is that the author was on a short bankroll playing a bad player, and he put his whole bankroll on the line with a huge edge but not a sure thing, got busted, and this prevented him from taking advantage of the situation. I don't believe the article is noteworthy as a citation.

Prior to "Mathematics of Poker", I don't recall seeing an application of Kelly betting to poker that I consider to be strong enough to be citation worthy. Maybe someone else has something older.