The work applied ideas from combinatorics and probability to analyse various games of chance which were popular during the time.
This book was mainly influenced by Christiaan Huygens' treatise De ratiociniis in ludo aleae and the knowledge of the fact that Jakob Bernoulli had written an unfinished work in probability.
The work greatly influenced the thinking of Montmort's contemporary, Abraham De Moivre.
The second section studies the card games: Pharaon, Lansquenet, Treize, Bassette, Piquet, Triomphe, L'Ombre, Brelan, Imperial and Quinze.
The fifth section contains Montmort's correspondence with Nicolaus(I) Bernoulli where Petersberg and Waldegrave problems are introduced.