Significance Utility, the key decision variable underlying economic choices, should represent risk, which is inherent to real-life decisions. We studied two prevalent forms of risk that are characterized by the spread (variance-risk) and asymmetry (skewness-risk) of rewards. We show that monkeys preferred higher variance and positively skewed gambles. Importantly, empirically estimated utility functions predicted both of these risk preferences. Thus, the abstract concept of utility seemed to explain primates’ choices under common forms of risk.