Mondays might not be your favorite day of the week, but the good news is that we’re all in this together ladies and gentlemen. As purveyors of prime Grade A web content, the SolidSmack crew has done some of the heavy-lifting to make sure you get your Mondays started on the right track.

Welcome to The Monday List.

Every Monday, we link you up with some of the most insightful, informative, and socially-relevant stories to keep tabbed, bookmarked, reading listed, pocketed, or what have you to get your week started on the right foot. Be sure to check in each week for a new crop of freshly sprouted words curated straight from the source of your favorite homegrown ‘Smack.

What We’re Reading This Week:

The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code

Bill Benter did the impossible: He wrote an algorithm that couldn’t lose at the track. Close to a billion dollars later, he tells his story for the first time.

Wall Street’s Latest Secretive Trend? Board Game Nights

This fraternity-like network of players is more Snakes & Ladders than Skull & Bones—but no less well-positioned.

The Billion-Dollar Bank Job

In 2016, a mysterious syndicate tried to steal $951 million from Bangladesh’s Central Bank.

What Happens When People and Companies Are Both Just ‘Brands’?

“Brand is everything, and everything is brand.”

Kelly Slater’s Wave Pool Is the Future. And It’s Bleak.

Manmade waves, the inaugural World Surf League Founders’ Cup, and other desert oddities

The untold story of the architect who turned Spain’s modernist power plants into art

“Some of the finest examples of 20th-century modernist Spanish industrial buildings, integrating technology, architecture, design and art.”