Casinos Books

Ainslie's book has "Betting Systems That Work" on its front page. However, there is no hard data to support the view that any betting systems change the house edge. His favorite betting system is Oscar's Grind. While Oscar's Grind is less destructive to one's bankroll than a Martingale, it is still no more of a 'winning' system than any other. The book's age is especially obvious in the author's discussion of blackjack.
After all, blackjack has changed a lot in the past couple of decades. He has no sympathy for those who count cards at blackjack, comparing them to people who use slugs to steal from slot machines!

Tom Ainslie loves gambling and has provided some of the best advice ever in this handy little book. Never mind the Beat Vegas, Get Rich At Craps type books. This one will give you a solid plan on what to play and how to play to maximize your winnings and minimize losses. The part about money management should be read by every gambler before arrival at the casino. He best summarizes his own book by saying that gambling should be fun, not an ordeal.

I needed this book for a college class. The college books store was charging a fortune for it. My teacher told us to look on Amazon and it was here and saved me quite a bit of money. Thanks Amazon.

This book should be considered for a "young readers" level. After completing (1 hour) you will not have any more practical knowledge on this subject than what you could gain by walking through a casino and observing. At $61.00 this book is overpriced by $55.00 when measured against value. If you are serious about this subject try "Casino Operations Management" by Kilby/Fox (best) or "An Introduction To The Casino Entertainment Industry" by Eade.

I completely disagree with the current review of this text as displayed on this site stating that the text is "juvenile" and relies heavily on photos to "dumb-down" content.

I also teach at the College Level and have been doing so for the past 7 years and have used this textbook for the past few years.

This is the entertainment business which I myself have not only worked in as a professional for the past 17 years, but have trained and consulted in just about every facet of the industry. Photos are part of generating excitement for readers - gaming is highly visual and I strongly feel that the images are supported with solid written content. To add, Jim Kilby was a wonderful teacher of mine in the UNLV gaming program and has vast knowledge, experience and expertise which is conveyed properly in this text.

Bottom line, this text is anything BUT juvenile and actually addresses subjects such as player ratings, internal audits and a wide variety of casino statistical formulas that easily make this text proper for the college level. This text is virtually all-encompassing as far as I am concerned and is a wonderful tool and reference for those aiming for a career in this exciting field.

Extremely basic text that relies largely on pictures to convey the content. Either an example of the dumbing down of both a complex industry and a complicated subject or the future of technical and professional education. Purchased it to consider using in a class I teach in Casino management at the junior college level--felt it was aimed at too junior an audience.

Well, sometimes it can be challengen to learn forms from someone who does them right, but it is rather imposible to learn tai-chi from pictures of the person who does it completele wrong. People who made this book do not dare to present photos of wrong forms, 24 form is presented in such mediocre quality that I could not belive they had guts to create it.

If you really want to learn tai-chi, find responsible and knowledgeble teacher and try to read books written by proffesionals and masters... and do not even consider to waste money for sloppy movements presented in this book.

This book is great for the beginner who is just learning the Yang style Simplified Form and for the more advanced student. Of course, Tai Chi is best learned with the guidance of a teacher, but a book like this would be very helpful. The book starts with some philosophy and history of Tai Chi, continues with Qigong exercises, then details the movements and postures of the 24 forms--each illustrated with several color photos--and finishes up with a chapter on meditation. I enjoyed the book for its beautiful illustrations, its clear descriptions, and because it teaches the forms the way I know them. I will recommend it to my students.

I have read (and studied) countless betting systems. The Tote Board is Alive and Well is one the truer accounts of betting systems I have had the pleasure to come across. With an ounce of concentration, anyone can become a successful bettor and literly any track in America.

Yet another book trading on the fallacy that horse trainers are capable of fixing races, and that they bet "inside money" using complicated betting schemes that emerge as betting patterns on the tote board. The idea is that if you watch the odds on every horse, you'll find a few whose odds fluctuations suggest insider trading, as it were.

The fact of the matter is that it's next to impossible to fix a horse race in the way these guys are talking about. It's possible to drug an animal, for good or ill, and it's possible for a jockey to put a choke-hold on a horse that will cause him to lose. But causing a horse to lose is not going to guarantee another will win unless you happen to be in a two-horse race, and they've never carded all that many of those. (Between 1995 and 1999, I've seen two.) And the idea of a conspiracy containing every trainer on the grounds of any given horse track (there are usually betwene two and three hundred trainers working during any given meet) is just plain ludicrous, especially when you realize that for the vast majority of those trainers, the difference between first and second-place money in every race they run is the difference between the family eating a decent meal and the family having beans for the eighth day in a row. (Would you want to live in that house? Hope it has lots of windows.)

It makes for entertaining reading, but that's about it.

I was a great fan of this author's 1992 book titled 'All Right,OK, You Win,' which was an insightful and well-written overview of theStrip. When I saw this book, 'Welcome to the Pleasuredome,' I hoped for an update of all that has happened on the Strip since 1992. Imagine my dismay when I discovered it's the exact same book as 'All Right, OK, You Win,' with a different cover and a different title. END

Although I patronize neither casinos nor brothels, Spanier's book was fascinating reading for me. He takes his reader inside the back rooms of casinos, explaining how they can afford to give away freebies to their best customers, how they draw new families, and the future of Las Vegas. He puts the story of the Nevada city into a historical context, explaining how it blossomed from a railroad outpost a few decades ago into the major destination it is today. He concludes by speculating about the effect of competition, including nearby Laughlin, state lotteries, and Atlantic City. This book will not disappoint.

Here is a somewhat fanciful look at the life of Warren Nelson. Mr. Nelson had a superb career in the Nevada gaming industry, and his life story is fun, easy reading. His account of his experiences as a partner at the Club Cal Neva and Palace Club are good reading.

For those who enter a casino to gamble but do not do their homework first, there is an invisible sign over the front door that reads: Abandon all hope all those who enter. In FELL'S OFFICIAL KNOW IT ALL GUIDE TO CASINO GAMBLING, Dennis Harrison writes some pretty basic advice that will be of interest to those who have not yet examined the more advanced technical books on the subject. Harrison covers the primary casino games: Pai-Gow Poker, Caribbean Stud, Let It Ride, Blackjack, Red Dog, Craps, Baccarat, Keno, Roulette, Slots, and Video Poker. He admits up front that except for Blackjack, no casino game offers even a theoretical player edge. Thus, there is no playing strategy or betting strategy that can compensate for the house edge which varies from game to game. His advice does offer the rather tenuous hope that if you play for a short time--perhaps only a few hours--you can still win modest sums before the house edge kicks in. My own area of expertise is in blackjack, and I have read many texts on it. Harrison is on strong ground on the basics of sitting at a 21 table. The game is more complicated than one might think and he does a good job of explaining the rudiments. He has two tables that I found relevant: the percent of times that a dealer will bust given the dealer's up card and the perecent of times that the player will bust given his two cards. These tables are useful in reinforcing the basic strategy, which is always of supreme importance in beginning one's blackjack education. I do have some quibbles with his basic strategy matrices. His advice on doubling both hard and soft hands is inaccurate in a few places. I also disagree with some of his splitting rules. Yet, for the novice, these discrepencies probably will not matter in the short run. I have a bigger beef with his counting section. Card counting is not the key to the casino vault. Even if one were to master the relatively uncomplicated simple Hi-Lo count that he discusses, that in and of by itself is only part of the Big Picture. There is a common stereotype maintained by blackjack authors like Harrison and Hollywood movies like 21 that blackjack card counting involves a roller coaster ride of huge bet variances. The greater the ratio of tens remaining in the shoe to non-tens, the more these authors urge the player to wager. The problem that I see here that Harrison ignores is that when one has a bet variation of more than 1-5 chips (whatever the actual value of a chip may be) the more likely it is that one's starting bankroll will vary enormously, thus necessitating a very large initial bank. If one wants any sense of longevity in this game, then one must learn that underbetting, (flat betting) rather than overbetting is the key. Still, Harrison's guide is a reasonable choice for one's first foray into the world of texts that purport to explain how to play the game.

This book is from 1946 but it is worth the read. The author is an Englishman. Better than a lot of gin books out there.

I've enjoyed Nick's woodworking magazine articles much more than this book, due to the illustration style. Good for a contractor/plan-minded person, but lacks photos of construction process, finished projects, etc.

I only paid about $10 or so from WW Bookclub, along w/ some books on decks, so I can't complain. I think w/ some revision & good photos showing projects from START TO FINISH, and photos of materials and tools 'in action'; the next edition might be a great book. Many 'drawing' illustrations, and they don't show enough of the start to finish process. Admittedly, I only spent about fifteen to twenty minutes on it. I own tons of books and videos on every conceiveable project or woodworking tool. (I would still buy some of Nick's/Deborah's other books in the future, and am probably going to build his boxjoint jig soon, from woodworking mag. article).