<i>any suggested reading material on the topic?</i><p>The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 2, (c) 1969, by Donald Knuth, has quite an extensive discussion of random numbers, their properties, algorithms, and tests. It&#x27;s about 160 pages in my edition. It&#x27;s very readable, and even if you skip all the exercises you will still get a very good grounding.<p>I don&#x27;t know how much has changed in his more recent editions. And I don&#x27;t know how if there are better books. But, in general, you can&#x27;t go wrong by starting with Knuth. He&#x27;s one of the all time greats!