Gambling Books

This is a great book for beginner Texas Hold'em players. It is an easy, fast read, which is very entertaining and informative.

The early chapters talk about the basics and mechanics of the game: how the cards are dealt, posting the blinds and the proper hands to play. Here they also discuss betting and the various positions at the table (everything from being "under-the-gun" to being on the "button.")

Later chapters cover "Limit Texas Hold'em," which is the basic game you might play at home or in a poker room. Also, many of us watch poker on TV, and an entire chapter is devoted to that, talking about what really goes on. A chapter on online poker is very interesting, as thousands play online every day. In fact, I just won a mini-tournament using some of the inforation I learned from this book (1st prize - $25!!!!!).

The book concludes with a chapter on winning in tournaments, which explains how playing in those differs from just the regular game.

Each chapter contains practice hands and "Tom's Top Ten Winning Tips."

Again, a good book for the beginner. More advanced and/or experienced players will probably want something more in-depth.

Good luck...and may the flop go your way!

I would recommend this book only if you've been playing hold 'em poker for a month max, or if you've been playing for a while and you keep loosing yet don't know why. The information here is basic, solid strategy that will prevent the novice from loosing all his money. It covers limit, no-limit, tournament and online play, therefore giving the reader a good basic foundation on all the most popular types of Hold 'em. It's also very inexpensive, a plus that's even more enticing for the beginning player considering the prices of most other poker books. But for intermediate players, this is pretty much information you already know intuitively.

To sum it up: A good, cheap, introductory strategy book meant for those who have just started playing the game.

Mr. McEvoy's view on how to approach both internet or real-life games of either limit or no-limit Texas Hold'em would best benefit someone who has just started playing the game. McEvoy informs his reader on the basics: what kind of hands are good/bad, how to bet in many different situations, relative chances of making certain hands, reading bluffs, and how to act depending on your position at the table, whether it be your chip stack or seat location.

McEvoy suggests a very tightly played overall strategy of the game. He tells of no style of bluffing--a quintessential part of poker, especially Hold'em. If you sit around and play a tight game, which normally means playing almost no hands, you will eventually be blinded until you are short-stacked or sitting at the rail.

Enough with my displeasures--I believe this book, despite its few drawbacks, is an excellent guide to those just beginning in Texas Hold'em. Mr. McEvoy gives a good synopsis on starting hand strengths and weaknesses. He also gives great insight on the impact of position, or order of bet, at the table. He argues that position is everything--I agree.

The best part of this book is the section devoted to possible hands one may come across at the table. While one hand may be wise to raise with in late position may simply be a call- or fold-only hand in the early or mid positions.

The part of the book that helped me the most was the section devoted to learning your opponents. McEvoy wisely stresses that you must know or very quickly learn the tendencies of your opponent in order to come out on top. He teaches to always fall in with the speed of the game, but at the same time, play your game no matter what. His best advice--to me--is to stick with your game and style and do not stray from it whether you are the chip-leader at the table or the short-stack heads-up against anyone from novice to poker great.

This book seems to be most beneficial to novice players, yet there are a few key things that could be learned by a seasoned-veteran who gave this book a shot. Mr. McEvoy's book was both very informative as well as entertaining and even humorous at times.

This book is what it is. "Beat Texas Hold Em" is designed to give beginners a feel for the game and ideas for strategy and tactics. It succeeds wonderfully. Its price is very cheap which is something that cannot be said of many gambling books. The narration style is very clear and concise. There's nothing confusing in the least in its structure. McEvoy provides advice on how to play common hands and also addresses internet poker in a separate chapter. No, it won't say a great deal to the pros but for those of us initially grappling with the game it's well worth the price.

If you are going to intelligently gamble in a casino, you should at least know the primary games and the different ways that you can place bets before you go. The odds on winning differ substantially from game to game and from bet to bet. The games of craps, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, slot machines and Keno are briefly explained. Once the primary explanation is complete, the various betting tactics and the odds of success are given. The language used is very readable; it is not necessary to know any probability beyond basic percents to understand the text.
If you are a gambling novice and would like to have some idea of the gaming strategies before you enter a casino, then this book will fill your needs.

This book covers most types of casino gambling, the problem is that there is very little helpful information.
Save your money, you probably already know what is in this
book.

If you're looking for a book on casino gambling, then "A Book on Casino Gambling" is exactly the book you're looking for. It is to casino gambling what Asimov's "The World of Carbon" is to organic chemistry: it's a classic, and it does an excellent job of demystifying a field where most people wallow in ignorance.

The book in general is very good in giving a overall view of Casino games. But what makes it a Classic is the Chapter on BlackJack. I've read many books and articales on BlackJack and the chapter in this book is as good as it gets. The Basic Stragety for two decks is reinforced by the Giants of BlackJack. ( Thorp Braun Humble ) I first read the book 20 plus years ago. And have not seen anything that summarizes what you need to know about playing BlackJack any better.

This is a must read. It is very informative and useful for novices and expert alike. It includes easy to read charts and strategies that actually work.

Beyond a doubt, this is the best book available on these two games. It is tightly written, packed with info on everthing from odds and vigorish to playing strategy and winning methods. I've read a few other books on these games before, and I've been playing them for a few years now, but this book has more info than any I've read, and the strategies are the best I've seen. I've already won more money than I ever have before! Thank you Mr. Vogel!

gives and overview of the rules of the games in excrutiating detail. Nothing to do with strategy. The book is a waste of time for anyone who knows the basics of poker. Only one small reference to actual gaming odds of various poker hands. SUMMARY: If you have a pair of tens or better in Let it Ride you should stay. If you get a pair or ace-king in certian situations in Caribbean Stud you should stay.

If you think you know everything that there is to know about Caribbean Stud or Let it Ride, then guess again. It always seemed like such an easy game, but I continued to lose anyway. Now I not only know what I was doing wrong, but I know what hands I have to play, when to fold, and exactly when to let my bets ride. I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone, even if you think you know how to play! He examines the rules, proper strategies, odds and probabilities, betting techniques, and everthing else you need to know.

If you are serious about finally winning at these games, BUY THIS BOOK!

I was preparing for a trip to Vegas and wanted to try something else besides blackjack.

This was just the book I needed. Craps is really not that difficult once you know what's going on at the table, and, as this book will tell you, you don't even need to understand all of it. Most bets on the table are sucker's bets. The odds are stacked in the house's favor. Stick to the bets outlined earlier in this book.

The early chapters explain the layout and rules of the table. The author goes on to explain what the odds are versus what the bets pay, which gives you the house advantages.

The system described in this book is more of a money management plan. Bet smart, and know that the house will always have some advantage, even if it's only 0.09%. In the long term you're going to lose. Manage your cash, have a ton of fun at the table cheering and letting the dice fly, while being served free drinks. Maybe you'll walk away with more in chips than you showed up with in cash. I did.

You'll have fun playing craps after reading this book. Just remember to ignore anyone, including the author of this book, who will lead you to believe over the long term you'll emerge a winner.

The text and elaboration on the rules of the game are great for the beginner. The "winner" part, I'm not sure of. I would investigate other books for strategy advice on craps, though I cannot advise which ones.

If you've never played before, this one is good.

Gives a simple method of playing based on mathematical explanation of odds.

This book is fine for the beginning dice roller, but not for those who already have some knowledge about craps. The book has a VERY GOOD discussion of the basic rules of the game, odds and the different payouts. I like the chapters on special allowance for both right and wrong betters. I still use the book to refresh my memory sometimes. Other than that, however, the playing systems are nothing great. Pass or Don't Pass with odds. Nothing new here, but a good book for those just starting out in the game of craps.

Robert Roto has written the most authoritative analysis on how to beat the game of Craps. With his in-depth analysis of how to play, calculating the odds, and effective money management, anyone can now beat the dealer at the craps table. "Casino Craps: A Guide to Successful Strategies Reducing Casino Odds" has been written for the novice and expert alike. This is a breakthrough work on this exciting game, and is a must read for anyone who plays the game.

This is a great book for beginners or casual players. It gives great descriptions of the bets available to players and also gives good statistics on the bets. Not so great though for strategy. Wouldn't use the strategies they suggest, but I would use the explanations of the bets and the risk associated with them.

This is the best book I ever ever read on this subject. The concepts are laid out in an easy to understand format. It is an excellent book for the novice as well as the experienced player. I especially like the way the Mr. Roto supports his ideas with statistical evidence.

I wasn't very impressed with this book in general. While I must admit much of the information is their, by and large I found it lacking when compared to other books of this genre.

Search around some more, their is better quality out there.

Not to say you can't learn from this book but it's difficult to follow pictures of what is supposed to be done while trying to absorb the text.

If you want to learn a couple of tricks it's worth it but if you're looking to learn some of the finer chip manipulations you may want to think twice.

I gave it 3 stars because the book wasn't a significant investment and I did squeeze out some knowledge.

Happy poker to all!

This book is great. I couldn't do any of the tricks described before i got this book in my mail (except the "chatter stack" lol). Now, I'm a thumb flippin fool! Also, i almost have the butterfly down packed. Now it's time to start using the other hand. That's where the REAL challenge begins. The pictures are easy enough to follow and has great instructions. Overall, an excellent book for the beginners, not so much for those who already know most of the basics.

I bought this book for one reason--to learn how to shuffle chips and, I'm happy to report, I actually know how to do it now. Not perfectly, not every time (not yet at least), but I'm very happy with my progress. Now I'm trying to decide what other tricks to learn. There are so many. And, for a "how to" book, it's not a bad read either. Kind of funny.

I was shocked to see Aiken only give this book a 4 star review. Anyone who has tried to study up on chip tricks knows that this is the only one out there worth reading. Watson and Teti's instructions are genius. Their step by step instruction, coupled with the precise photography will have you doing the Butterfly in no time- regardless of your finger flexibility.

this book, as indicated by its title, its genre, its time period, and its authors, embraces theoretical foundations long since discredited even among the academics: viz., that perfect information can be obtained (the true meaning of Kelly); that complete rationality is not only expectable within any game-theoretic space, but also, once realized, can adapt perfectly to such stochastic and discontinuous processes as appear; and that randomness, not persistence, is the foundation of every speculative game.

nearly every mathematical model of an event results in tautologies, in that the model rests upon assumptions not contained within the condition it abstracts. proof of the adequacy of the model, therefore, rests less upon its predictive power--although, perhaps, accurate when applied to a subset of the universe about which it discourses--than its meta-logical, meta-factual persuasions. logical systems are axiomatic, that is, deductive; where-as real systems are conditional and probabilistic, and give rise to frequent contradiction. efficiency market theory suffers from these persuasions, from these tautologies, and insinuates its bias in the conclusions it draws.

efficiency exists only so long as an equilibrium exists in the underlying dynamic: once an efficiency is embraced by the players in a game as a "law", the preponderance of opinion must necessarily neglect the exceptions to its beliefs, and thus, bring about that inefficiency which it arose to defray: the exception is undervalued, and this elevates its worth.

William Ziemba and Donald B. Hausch, eds., Efficiencies of Racetrack Betting Markets: Economic Theory, Econometrics, and Mathematical Economics (Academic Press, 1994)

I believe this is the only review I have ever written for a book I do not own. While I was working at a university in the late nineties, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a copy of this in their library after reading Ziemba and Hausch's landmark Beat the Track. For the year between my finding it and my switching jobs, the book was out of the library and in my hands every day. I renewed as often as I could, and when I couldn't, I would drop it off on my way to work and take it out again on my way home. They were inclined to be lenient, because I was the only person who had ever taken the book out of the library.

Let me get one thing straight from the outset: folks, this is not your momma's handicapping manual. For that matter, it's not your shady Uncle George's handicapping manual, either. It's a graduate-level econ textbook. And if you have no background in math (as I didn't at the time, and I still have only what I've gleaned thanks to Howard Sartin and Tom Brohamer), your first trip through this large and ponderous tome will be torturous. You might want to bone up on your equations, not to mention keeping a small handbook of "what Greek letters mean to economists" by your side at all times.

Eventually, however, you will dig your way down to the meaning of the first paper. And then the second. And then the third. And so on. And for the horseplayer with an academic bent (definition, gleaned from some nasty comments during a discussion on the book that irked some folks who didn't like what they were hearing: any bettor who read Rosecrance's The Degenerates of Lake Tahoe and was able to laugh when finding a description of someone a lot like him), figuring out what these people are on about is the rough equivalent of discovering the tombs of Tutankhamen, Rameses, and Nefertiti all at the same time, and finding incontrovertible proof that Anubis really DID carry their souls off to the realm of the dead in the process. It's true that any bright middle-school student who has a good grasp of fractions will be able to get Beat the Track, and praise the powers that be that Ziemba and Hausch are capable of translating this morass into something most people can understand, even if they only touched on a portion of one of Ziemba's papers (which is the first one presented here). If the middle-school student is really, REALLY bright, is what the classifieds today call a self-starter (read: willing to try and figure this stuff out on his own), and has access to a tutor and/or writings that can explain some of the more esoteric facts, and has six months or so free to decipher this stuff full-time, said bright middle-schooler can probably find the keys to the kingdom. And get a pretty solid understanding of econ jargon in the process (which could lead to blowing the curve in Freshman-level econ classes in a few years).

I've been considering going back to school and learning to be an accountant. Before I do so, I have every intention of acquiring a copy of this hefty tome, which will likely set me back a year's tuition or more, and using it so I, too, can blow the curve. Of course, if it helps me make enough money to pay for school in the process, that would be quite a bonus, but the real value here is in showing, once and for all, that depending on your point of view, either horse race investing is no more a gamble than playing the stock market, or that playing the stock market is just as much a gamble as putting your two bucks on the nose of Glue Factory Refugee in the seventh at Charles Town on Friday night. *****

This is a very difficult to locate title and you are likely to pay a significant price premium. I found my copy at Amazon.co.uk and it was a reverse bound photocopy of the manuscript, still carrying a premium price!

The book contains approximately 60 academic papers divided into seven categories. As academic papers, each of the paper goes into significant depth regarding narrow topics. The organization of the book attempts to bridge between the topics. Some of the papers are "classics" written as early as the 1940's. Papers include the classics by Harville, Hausch, Asch and Benter. The authors of the papers include mathematicians, psychologists and gamblers. Some value in the book is derived through identification of these authors to search for their other works. The bibliography and acknowledgements are uniquely useful.

Frankly, after reading the majority of the papers, I am not sure I understand the exhorbitant pricing for the book. I do not see any conclusions or recommendations that aren't contained in a range of handicapping books, and the individual papers are readily available to anyone willing to invest the time to research at a major technical library. The book is a good one, but not as great as the price would lead you to believe.

After reading and researching statistical techniques applied to horse racing this book is by far the most important and complete book I have read. The techniques are proven using complex math and statistical calculations and if repeated can earn a consistant and reasonable profit.

I bought this book at Borders and it is an excellent book that will help you make money at the track. I thought I knew alot about harness racing but this book takes you to the next level. If your going to gamble make money when your doing it. I am so on fire since I started using this book that it is scary, I can't beleive how good I've gotten. Check this out friends.

This book helps you win big at the harrness tracks.It will help you learn how to beat the favorite. If you want to win buy this book

Being a novice handicapping book buyer but an experienced handicapper, I purchased this book thinking that it might add a little something to my arsenal, however it fell waaaaay short of that. The layout of the book is weak in that it provides terrible images of the program pages and then refers to that program page 1-2 pages ahead which causes one to have to keep turning back-and-forth which, for my taste, interferes with continuity and, therefore, comprehension.

It, like almost any other book, did have SOME information that was useful, however, this book is not for the experienced (I should say GOOD) handicapper. It's more for the novice that needs to acquire some basic handicapping skills.

In my opinion, finding "vulnerable favorites" (as the book purports to teach you how to do) was more of the focus of this book instead of finding the best horse. Most favorites are vulnerable by virtue of the fact that MOST of them lose, depending on the track, upwards of 72%.

In short, if you're new to harness racing and need to know basic terminology, how to compute a horse's last half time, how to adjust for different track speed ratings and the like, this book may be a good STARTER book for you. If you're looking to improve on existing handicapping skills, you probably ought to look beyond this book.

Bill Heller, Harness Overlays: Beating the Favorite (Bonus Books, 1993)

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I own two other Heller books (Overlay, Overlay and Turf Overlays), and they're both at least worthwhile, if not the rock-solid sourcebooks one gets from Brohamer or Quirin. But back ten or so years ago, I read Tom Ainslie's book on harness racing. Ainslie is the undisputed king of Thoroughbred writers, the man who brought Thoroughbred handicapping into the modern age; he is the foundation sire of every handicapper since 1968, in one way or another, directly or indirectly. And, simply put, his harness book was crap. Why I expected Bill Heller to do any better, I'm not sure.

Much of the problem with Harness Overlays lies in its vagueness. There are long stretches of information that are interesting (in at least one chapter, "interesting" is kind of a stretch), but their usefulness at the time of publication, much less eleven years later, is questionable at best. This is okay, relatively, when you've got a six-hundred-page tome and you want to throw in some interesting, not really all that relevant but it'll give the reader a break material. When your book is a quarter that length, you're going to end up with a reader who feels cheated. (By the way, the six hundred page tome I was thinking of when I wrote that is Olmsted's Compleat Handicapper. $65 when I bought it eight years ago, paid for itself on my first bet using one of its principles, and has been worth many times that much over the years. A must-have for any handicapper.)

What the vagueness masks is... very little, really. I take copious notes on handicapping books, usually so I can translate them into code for quick system testing. A slim book with much common-knowledge information or an older book that's had much repetition since and thus has become common knowledge, like Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing, will give me about four pages of notes; a book with some math in it and a few ideas I haven't seen before, e.g. Carroll's Handicapping Speed, will give me six or seven; a book heavy in advanced math concepts will give me twenty to thirty (e.g. Brohamer's Modern Pace Handicapping, still the best handicapping book I've ever read). How many pages did I get out of Harness Overlays? Less than one. As a handicapping manual, I can't recommend it in the least.

Where I can give it decent marks is in that vagueness I mentioned above. Two chapters are jockeys' responses to questionnaires about their driving strategies, and the right respondents (four from New York, four from Chicago) are all award-winning drivers. It's great to get into the minds of the best guys out on the track, and those two chapters alone are worth the price of admission. If you're looking for good, solid handicapping material on the trotters and pacers, stick to a guy who specializes in them (Jerry Connors, who wrote the Handicapping Beyond the Basics books, is probably your best bet; there's a dearth of good harness handicapping info out there). **

It's a pamphlet. And even that is being generous. This looks like a hand-printed notepad that Mr. Tuttle took out of his pocket and photo-offset at Kinkos. It's 105 pages, but if it were typed, it would be about a six-page article. I know, I know: what you'll learn from the book is worth much more than $19.95. But so is what you'll learn from the Bible, and you don't get overcharged for it.

After reading this book, I'm extremely excited for the start of this upcoming football season. Mr. Tuttle's teachings are more than worth the $19.95 cover price, and how anybody could give him a one star review is beyond me. Clearly Mr. Tuttle had players that bet as much as he does (or more), in mind when he started to write this book, and although a "nickel" wager is a little more than my comfort zone, I'm still incredibly excited to try out Mr. Tuttle's formulas for myself. The only reason I did not give the book a 5-star rating is because it is an incredibly quick read (only 104 pages and large font), and I found myself longing for more. I hope he writes a follow-up book soon, and next I'm going to probably buy his baseball book. Good luck to all!

Joseph J. Tuttle's book, "Football Betting for Real Players" gets right to the heart of football handicapping--beating the numbers! Whether it is the line,the total,or all the statistics involved in a football game, this book will give you a fascinating insight on how to "crunch" those numbers.I certainly got a wealth of information from the book and I'm very anxious to put his ideas into use. Bernie Feeney

This is a good book for the right kind of sports bettor, you definately have to have the necessary bankroll to apply some of these theories, but the ideas are definately something "outside of the box" to say the least. I personally think "The Tuttle Way" horse book is the better of this Authors Books, and I think I've read them all.

Thanks, PSL King

All I ever wanted was a good fair advantage!!!

It teaches the skills neccesary to use the bonus structures of online casinos to your advantagel.

Important Note: This takes discipline that is clearly beyond the reach of a compulsive gambler.

You MUST pick your casinos carefully. You,ABSOLUTELY must size your bets according to the formulas provided or else you are guaranteed to lose all your money before your average advantage can assert itself!!!

By patiently placing many small bets, over a four-month period. I systematically turned $400 startup money into $2500 before the US government shutdown access to most of the better online casinos. I would have done as well in two months if I had not been in the US. Over time I would have had more money to work with and been able to safely place larger bets and it would have snow-balled.

Again, I wasn't lucky, I was PATIENT AND CAREFUL!!!

Please do not buy or read this book! I don't want competition. Arnold Snyder is a genious and in my opinion is the foremost gambling expert in the world, and no, I'm not one of "The Entity Known As Avery Cardoza's" shills either. This book is kind of like a sharpa who leads you to a mysterious temple and says "here it is". It doesn't really tell you what "it" is other than to say it could be worth a couple large. It's worth a lot more, and if you don't know why that's certainly not my problem, nor is it Mr. Snyder's for that matter.

In reading the first review posted here, most is misguided, misleading, or just wrong.

However, this statement is completely false:
"The trouble is that online gambling is illegal in most of the United States. "

Online gambling is illegal in the few specific states that have prohibited it (Nevada, New Jersey, and a few others). This definitely does not make up the majority of the US.

I would think that Amazon would have a policy against posting false statements in a review.

Arnold Snyder has some interesting ideas as a gambling writer, but this new offering is a little disappointing.
The author explains how to make money from casino and poker bonuses. Basically, his method involves signing up with an internet casino, taking any bonus they have, then cashing out.

The trouble is that online gambling is illegal in most of the United States. If you could make hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this then it might be worthwhile, but as Snyder seems to admit, getting the money is really hard. Getting money out of an e-casino, judging by the problems Snyder's mentions, is not easy, they are very reluctant to pay up, many simply will take your money knowing you can't take them to court. Some will cheat: it is very easy to write a computer program which fixes the odds against you.

Even with honest e-casinos, you often have to wager eighty times the bonus or more before they will let you keep it!! You would end up losing your money most of the time!! Imagine trying to get a $100 bonus, having to wager $8000, and losing $600 or $700. It does happen!

If you check out the author's website, you see why he is promoting e-casinos-his site gets lots of money from links to internet casinos and he gets a percentage of the losses of people who go through those links. I think that is why he is recommending this type of "advantage play" rather than something respectable like card-counting.

Nevertheless, he does cover some of the common problems you face online in some detail. And, the section on poker is a good basic primer, if you like playing poker.