# Quote — Tom Holt, Flying Dutch

> “It was basically a form of gambling, and it went something like this.
>
> “The Fuggers would think of something that was extremely unlikely to happen, and then they would persuade someone to wager them money that it would. Now the proper term for this arrangement is a sucker bet, but the Fuggers wanted to find a respectable name for it, so they called it Insurance. It caught on, just as they knew it would, and soon it became so respectable that they were able to get people to make a new bet every year, and they called this sort of bet a premium.”

- Author: [Tom Holt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-holt.md)
- Book: [Flying Dutch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-holt/flying-dutch.md)
- Page: 71
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Holt#Flying_Dutch_(1991)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-holt/flying-dutch/it-was-basically

## More from this book

> It may not be true, but it provides a much-needed focal point for baffled indignation.

p. 93 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-holt/flying-dutch/it-may-not.md)

> When he left Quincy's he returned to the studios and went to see the man who was going to tell him everything he needed to know about sports broadcasting in twenty-five minutes.
>
> “The main thing,” said the expert, is to turn up on the right day at the right place and keep the sound recordists out of the bar. Leave everything else to the cameramen, and you'll do all right. That's it.”

p. 82 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-holt/flying-dutch/when-he-left.md)

> Jane was a child of the media age, and there lurked in the back of her mind the instinctive belief that if a thing wasn't on the news, it couldn't really have happened after all.

p. 203 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-holt/flying-dutch/jane-was-a-child.md)