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Gaming Book Reviews
by Nick Christenson
Title: The Gambler's Guide to the World
Author: Jesse May
Publisher: Broadway Books
Date: 2000
ISBN: 0-7679-0552-0
Pages: 307
Price: $17.50
In "Gambler's Guide to the World", Jesse May gives us a book that's part travel guide, and part gambling adventure as he travels to exotic locations, meets unusual people, eats the local cuisine, and gambles like a fiend.
May doesn't actually cover the whole world, of course. But he does experience a great deal of it. He divides his attention into five regions: Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Russia, and the United States. May is not content to merely observe these places. He made sure he actually experienced most everything he reports in his book. Therefore, his reports don't read like an amalgamation of a bunch of travel brochures. When May says the mixed grill at the Coconut Bay Beach Club on Curacao is good food at a good price, it's safe to assume that this is because the author has sampled it himself.
Overall, I liked what I read, but I found the regional reports to be uneven. I liked May's reports on greater Latin America and Moscow. I would have welcomed information about gambling in Russia outside of Moscow, and May's European tour seemed comparatively dull and perhaps a bit too poker-centric for much of his audience. The information he provides on Atlantic City is very good, but his descriptions of Las Vegas were not as insightful or thorough as I've seen in other guides, although, it should be pointed out that this is a tough city for one person to cover and then describe in 70 pages. It's comparatively easy to find good information on gambling in the United States, though I would have rather been able to read about the casinos in Australia, South East Asia, or South Africa than these more familiar places. However, a book advance only goes so far.
If you're traveling to Central America, South America, the Caribbean or Moscow and are thinking about doing some gambling there, definitely pick this book up. If you enjoy reading about someone else's exotic adventures, are thinking about a poker tour of Europe, or want a Casino
Guide to Atlantic City, this book won't disappoint.
Title: Beating the Casinos at Their Own Game
Author: Peter Svoboda
Publisher: Square One Publishers
Date: 2001
ISBN: 0-7570-0005-3
Pages: 278
Price: $19.95
"Beating the Casinos at Their Own Game" is intended to provide strategies for the casino gambler to "increase the odds of winning." The key to understanding this book is to understand what this phrase, "increase the odds of winning" means. The strategies presented in this book will not eliminate the casino's house edge. The house will still be a long-term winner. However, in any given short gambling "session" using the methods described in this book, the player is more likely than not to be a net winner during that session. Most people who understand this distinction will probably not find this book useful. I believe that most people that don't understand this distinction should not read this book. From the descriptions in the book, I don't know whether the author really understands this distinction or not.
Svoboda espouses a betting style which may make a player a better than 50-50 shot to come away a winner at any one session, but these systems do not do anything to overcome the house advantage. The book does provide reasonable introductions to several casino games, such as roulette, craps, and baccarat. The book does contain some good advice, for example, Svoboda advises craps players to not make the proposition bets in the center of the layout. However, this is interspersed with some very bad advice, such as betting the 5-number bets at roulette, the very worst bets one can make on the layout, and his recommendations regarding blackjack basic strategy are just wrong and should be ignored. Admittedly, there exist a fair number of players who gambleso poorly that they might benefit a little from reading this book, but with other titles like "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gambling Like a Pro" available, which covers essentially the same material so much better, I really can't recommend this book to anyone.
Svoboda does provide information on some betting systems that are interesting to read about, some of which the author recommends and some of which he decries. However, none of these are intrinsically better than any of the others, despite the author's advice. If one is interested in hearing about new gambling systems, maybe this book is worthwhile, but I doubt there are many people who fall into this category. The back cover says, "This is the book that casinos don't want you to read." If I were a casino owner, I'd hand out free copies to anyone who promised to follow its advice.
Nick Christenson is a Senior Technical Consultant at Sendmail Inc. Formally Senior Architect with Earthlink Network he has authored numerous articles and technical papers on Internet related topics. An avid poker and blackjack player Nick reviews books on gambling as well as computer related subjects. He may be contacted by email at: NPC@jetcafe.org.
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