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Gambling

Gambling is one of the most popular past times in America, with over 47 million people playing games of chance. Las Vegas is the gambling Mekka which offers the opportunity to strike it rich or loose everything. And with the invention of online gambling the opportunities are many to try your luck. In order to increase your chances to leave the tables as a winner, we are providing you with ebooks on strategy and game play as well as the best teaching and training software. Do not bet your money in a game you don't understand. Be a smart gambler, invest the time to study the games you would like to play and then go out and have fun while playing the best and most informed you can.

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Lawrence Scaife
Spotlight on the Card Sharp by Lawrence Scaife

An instructive warning to those who must play for stakes. Interesting amusement for those who do not.

Excerpt from the Foreword:

This book is an explanation of the fundamental principles upon which all card sharping is based. Once the main ideas are thoroughly understood, it becomes a comparatively easy matter to detect any subterfuge no matter how intricate.

This book is nicely illustrated by Charles Remmers from photographs by the author. It contains a description of cheating at the popular Australian game of Two-Up which makes it unique.

  • Foreword
  • Spotlight On The Card-Sharp ...
$10
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Professor Hoffmann
Baccarat Fair and Foul by Professor Hoffmann

Being an explanation of the game, and a warning against its dangers.

Excerpt from the preface:

A good deal of public curiosity has been of late aroused respecting the game of Baccarat. The present work is designed, in the first place, to satisfy such curiosity by giving an explanation of the game and a statement of its laws. But it has also a second object. There is perhaps no game which so lends itself to the arts of the card-sharper as Baccarat, and if it be true that "in vain the net is spread in sight of any bird," an exposition of the frauds to which the honest player is liable should...

$10
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Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin & Professor Hoffmann
Card Sharping Exposed by Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin & Professor Hoffmann

A translation of Les Trickeries des Grecs by M. Robert-Houdin, one of the most valuable and interesting works on the subject of card sharping.

Excerpt from the preface:

Meanwhile, the march of science has continued, and the arts of deception, like other arts, have received many new developments. There are fashions in fraud, as in more innocent matters. I have endeavoured in the present pages not only to offer a faithful translation of Robert-Houdin's text, but by the aid of notes to bring down his work, so to speak, to present date. In so doing I have to acknowledge special obligation...

★★★★★ $12
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Dustin Marks
Cheating at Blackjack Squared by Dustin Marks

The dark side of gambling.

"Loaded with rare, inside information." - Darwin Ortiz

"Absolutely fascinating and enlightening! Ingenious methods that boggle the mind." - Daryl

"Inside techniques exposed for the first time in print." - George Joseph / Director of Surveillance, Bally Entertainment Co.

It may be shocking and it's certainly dangerous. Nevertheless, this unique ebook represents the definitive resource on how professional con men cheat at Blackjack and other card games. The author, a former high-stakes cheater, explains an amazing array of specific moves with clear, understandable text and...

$10
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Dustin Marks
Cheating at Blackjack: and advantage play by Dustin Marks

"Must reading for all card magicians!" - Allan Ackerman

"Outstanding!" - Darwin Ortiz

"This book should be on your shelf alongside The Expert at the Card Table, The Man Who Was Erdnase, The Annotated Erdnase, and Loaded Dice." - William P. Miesel

His name is not "Marks," but when you buy this ebook you will learn why he had to write under an alias. The ebook covers advantage play, cheating, and the moves that get the money.

"Exceptional. Controversial. Highly recommended." - Michael Dalton / Blackjack Review

"WOW! The real world of cheating and the plays that get the money." - Bob Snyder / Gaming Consultants

  • Introduction
  • My Credentials
  • Casino Organization ...
$10
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PDF

Herbert Asbury
Sucker's Progress by Herbert Asbury

An informal history of gambling in America from the colonies to Canfield.

Inside flap:

Sucker's Progress is the first attempt to write a connected history of the most prevalent of venial sins, and traces the history and development of gambling in America from the card and dice games in the back rooms of colonial taverns to the days of Richard Canfield the last of the great American gamblers. The book is concerned with the picturesque and spectacular features of gambling, and only incidentally with its morals.

The author commences with a survey of the origin and development of the principal...

$19.50
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Henry Meyer
Life Staked at Cards by Henry Meyer

A sketch of the life of Henry Meyer a converted gambler.

Henry Meyer was by his own account a very successful gambler who would play predominantly in Europe. One day he played against a young man and won all his money. Subsequently, that young man took his own life. At that point, Meyer realized that the young man was his younger brother. This charring experience made him give up gambling completely.

While I don't doubt that Meyer was a professional gambler who would later reform and give up gambling, the story with his brother rings a bit too fantastic. It is hard to believe that he and...

$6
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Hugh S. Fullerton
American Gambling and Gamblers by Hugh S. Fullerton

This is an excellent series of articles on the history of gambling in America. Excerpt from the introduction:

These articles are the result of long travels in many parts of the United States. They are real contributions of human and public interest.

  • Preying Upon the Wage Earners
  • How They Prey Upon One Another
    • Where Every Boy Had to Learn Poker
    • Gambling "Commercialized" and Organized
    • "Square" Gamblers all "Broke"
    • The Story of Hot Springs
    • Politics and "Business" Worked for "the Game"
    • The "Open" Season of 1912-13
    • Something Bound to Happen
    • As the "Straight" Gamblers Saw It
    • Why...
$7
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Stephen Sutcliffe
In a New York Gambling-House by Stephen Sutcliffe

The actual experiences of a visitor to the most famous gaming resort in the American metropolis.

Excerpt from the introduction:

In those elegant fictitious biographies which our ancestors used to write, the hero was never considered properly ingratiated into the reader's sympathies until he had spent an evening, at least, in a gaming-house, and had come away more or less crumpled and despoiled. Now, a great deal has been said on this same subject in New York, during recent months, and one establishment of the sort - which we will call Danfield's, because that is not precisely its name...

$2.99
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George Jean Nathan
The Old-Time Train Gambler by George Jean Nathan

Stories of card and revolver play, told by a man who "worked" the trains with his confederates in the days when stakes ran high.

If one believes this account, then a lot of the crooked gambling on trains was simply theft at gunpoint rather than sophisticated sleight-of-hand card advantage play.

1st edition 1910, PDF 7 pages.

$3.50
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Alex Master
Online Poker by Alex Master

It's becoming almost as big as baseball, football, hockey, and other sporting events. Television has increased its popularity. With the Internet, it's coming into our homes at a lightning-fast rate. The rage that's sweeping the nation - poker! Although the game has been around for years played in family recreation rooms, smoky bars, casinos, and even retirement homes, these days, poker has become the game of choice for hundreds of thousands of people.

Family game night used to mean getting out the Monopoly board and battling over Park Place and Broadway. Now, family game night is more likely...

$10
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William Henry Irwin
The Confessions of a Con Man by William Henry Irwin

A wonderfully interesting confession of a con man who was a contemporary of Erdnase, and just like him operated for a time while traveling with small circuses in Illinois and surrounding states. Of particular interest is a full dialog of how an unsuspecting person on the train was lured into gambling 3 card monte. The dialog demonstrates how skillfully these operatives were and how well they understood human nature. Other cons are also described in detail.

Excerpt from the preface:

When these confessions appeared serially, friends and distant enquirers took it for granted that they were fiction;...

$15
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PDF

Jonathan H. Green
Gambling in its Infancy and Progress by Jonathan H. Green

A dissuasive to the young against games of chance.

  • DIALOGUE I. On Playing Pins.
  • DIALOGUE II. On Playing Marbles.
  • DIALOGUE III. On Pitching Coppers.
  • DIALOGUE IV. On Matching And Tossing Coppers, Throwing Heads And Tails, &c.
  • DIALOGUE V. On Sabbath Breaking - Telling Lies - Disobedience To Parents, &c.
  • DIALOGUE VI. On The Use Of Tobacco.
  • DIALOGUE VII. On Playing Various Games.
  • DIALOGUE VIII. On Gamblers, Lotteries, &c.
  • Death Of A Boy On A Race Course.
  • Social Card-Parties.
  • The Gambler's Victim.
  • The Ruined Family; Or, A Warning To Those Who Play For Amusement.
  • The Charm Of Gambling. ...
$8
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PDF

Judge Publishing Co.
Judge's Library No. 79 by Judge Publishing Co.

Judge's Library was a satirical periodical published in the USA from 1881 to 1947. It was a rival magazine to Puck founded among others by cartoonist James Albert Wales, dime novels publisher Frank Tousey and author George H. Jessop.

This issue No. 79 of Judge is all about poker. It provides a wonderful glimpse into how ubiquitous poker was in the US that such a successful periodical would dedicate an entire issue to it.

Also noteworthy, particularly for Erdnase scholars, is the fact that pretty much all the funny dialogs in this issue are in various national slang and ebonic. Thus the few lines...

$8
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PDF_facsimile

unknown
Card Cheating Exposed by unknown

A complete revelation of the cheaters' work at Bridge, Nap, Solo, Bluff, Banker, Baccarat, Faro, etc.

Published by Coe & Co. A rare booklet offered at the first 2023 Ricky Jay auction with an estimated price of $500-$800. Excerpt from the introduction:

In introducing this little book to the public it is my intention and desire to expose the multiplicity of ways by which cheating at cards is accomplished. The average honest player is little suspicious of the enormous amount of cheating that is done, but what would astonish him still more would be to learn the simple tricks used by even the...

$15
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PDF

John Philip Quinn
Gambling and Gambling Devices by John Philip Quinn

Being a complete systematic educational exposition designed to instruct the youth of the world to avoid all forms of gambling.

This is a classic of gambling literature. It describes the implements and devices used by crooked gamblers and gambling establishments to fleece the unwary.

Excerpt from the Preface:

For a quarter of a century the author witnessed and practiced every variety of gambling known to the profession. The next quarter of a century he has devoted to exposing the frauds of the gambler. Starting out in the lecture field, he realized his efforts would be futile unless...

$15
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PDF

David A. Curtis
Stand Pat by David A. Curtis

Poker stories from the Mississippi.

The stories play in Brownsville and Arkansas City both located on the West bank of the Mississippi river during the second half of the 19th century.

Excerpt from the preface:

The things that I saw, that seemed worthy of note, I have set down without prejudice to the little town of Brownsville, which has grown since I was there. Let no citizen of the place pursue me vindictively because I found him less interesting than Stumpy. And let no one’s civic pride suffer because I noted in the town only what seemed to me picturesque. I have no quarrel with...

$9
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PDF

John S. Salak
Dictionary of Gambling by John S. Salak

A dictionary for the language of horse racing, dice and cards, bookmakers and runners, touts and tote boards, a colorful but expensive language to learn first-hand from the natives.

Excerpt from the preface:

The invitation to compile a Dictionary of Gambling was an intriguing one. One we wouldn’t turn down on a bet, so to speak. Here was a subject which just about everyone, to some degree, was acquainted with and one which, in the sober reflection of a depleted bankroll, just about everyone, to some degree, realized they just didn’t know enough about. It should prove to be, if not...

$15
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PDF

Alfred Trumble
Faro Exposed by Alfred Trumble

At one point it was believed that only one copy of this book existed. This and other myths are addressed in the introduction by Frank Lehmann, who has studied this book in detail.

The book exposes various ways in which the game of Faro was crooked. It was a very popular betting game in the United States and usually was rigged in one way or another. It was published by Richard K. Fox, the proprietor of the Police Gazette.

  • Introduction
  • Part I
    1. The Game Of Faro
    2. The Cards In Faro
    3. Dealing The Cards
    4. Keeping The Game
    5. Technical Terms Used In Faro
    6. Laws Of The Game
    7. The Chances Of The...
$19.50
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PDF

Chicago Herald
How To Win At Poker by Chicago Herald

This article describes in particular one marking system of cards. It includes illustrations depicting how the cards were marked. It also touches on a few other ways to cheat.

The article appeared in the Chicago Herald during Mayor Roche's time.

1st edition ~1887, PDF 5 pages.

$5
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PDF

Blakely Hall
You Can't Beat the Game by Blakely Hall

An account of faro gambling and cheating in New York City.

The newspaper that ran this article is not known. The time frame of the article is somewhere in the vicinity of 1890.

PDF 3 pages.

$4
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PDF

Floyd Moss
Card Cheats: How They Operate by Floyd Moss

A play-by-play exposé of the tricks of the card sharp's trade.

Moss gives general advice on how to avoid becoming a sucker or losing more money than luck alone would explain. The most interesting part is where he describes several sleights and strategies cardsharps use to cheat at the card table. Many of the sleights are illustrated with photos.

  • Introduction 5
  • Meet the Enemy 7
    • Who Are the Victims?
    • Suckers
    • Addicts
    • Defeating the Enemy
    • Luck
    • Greed
    • Amateurs
    • Advice
  • Modern Cheating
    • False Cut Number One
    • False Cut Number Two
    • False Cut Number Three
    • False Cut Number Four
    • A Reverse...
$15
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PDF

Mason Long
The Life of Mason Long the Converted Gambler by Mason Long

Being a record of his experience as a white slave; a soldier in the Union Army; a professional gambler; a patron of the turf; a variety theater and minstrel manager; and, finally, a convert to the Murphy Cause, and to the Gospel of Christ.

This book is an illustration of this paragraph by S.W. Erdnase:

Hazard at play carries sensations that once enjoyed are rarely forgotten. The winnings are known as "pretty money," and it is generally spent as freely as water. The average professional who is successful at his own game will, with the sublimest unconcern, stake his money on that of another's, though...

$10
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PDF

Collin MacKenzie
Jack Pots by Collin MacKenzie

For anybody interested in Erdnase, this poker story compilation should be of interest because many poker stories are from Chicago. It was published in 1887 which means it likely overlaps somewhat with the active time of Erdnase. We are not saying you will find a story featuring Erdnase. But such poker stories, even if they are often exaggerated or purely fictional, do provide one with some sense of the times of Erdnase.

In particular, it is educational to compare the stories with the ones from Eugene Edwards' Jack Pots. There isn't any significant overlap, however one aspect is noticeably different. Eugene...

$12
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PDF

John W. Keller
The Game of Draw Poker by John W. Keller

A fairly detailed work on the rules and variations of draw poker. Also includes some advice on how to play the game successfully. This work includes Robert C. Schenck's rules for draw poker.

  • PREFACE
  • CHAPTER I
    • Introduction
    • The Element of Chance
    • The Question of Stakes
  • CHAPTER II
    • Technical Terms
  • CHAPTER III
    • The Order of Hands
    • The Straight
    • The Blaze
  • CHAPTER IV
    • Rules of Draw Poker
    • The Limit
    • The Ante
    • The Straddle
    • The Deal
    • Betting Before the Draw
    • Discard and Draw
    • Betting After the Draw
  • CHAPTER V
    • Jack Pots
    • Incidental Jack Pots
    • The "Buck"
    • Progressive Jack Pots
  • CHAPTER VI
    • Freeze Out
  • CHAPTER...
$8
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PDF

Robert C. Schenck
Draw: rules for playing poker by Robert C. Schenck

While Robert Schenck served as ambassador in the UK, he was persuaded to write down his rules for poker by a duchess. This was the first publication to deal solely with draw poker.

1st edition 1880, PDF 6 pages.

$5
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Jonathan H. Green
Gambling Exposed by Jonathan H. Green

Full exposition of all the various arts, mysteries, and miseries of gambling.

It is a complete exposure, of the different and various ways of deception and cheating in all the numerous games played, such as Faro, Two, Three, and Four-Handed Poker, Shuffling Cards, Roulette and Rolling Faro, Vingt-Un, Brag, Euchre, Game of Boston, All Fours, Cribbage, Whist, Dice, Stealing out Cards, Palming, Playing by Signs, Marking Cards, Backgammon, Solitaire, Playing Three against One, Spring Tables, Spring Boxes, Pulleys, Ingenuity of Gamblers, Card Manufactories, Lotteries, then modes of drawing and...

$12
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Jonathan H. Green
Games and Tricks with Cards by Jonathan H. Green

You will find here card tricks, cheating exposes, card games, and gambling stories.

A later expanded version of this book was published under the title Gamblers' Tricks With Cards Exposed and Explained.

  • Chapter I
    • Invention Of Cards
    • Mysterious Trick Of Thirty Six Cards; Telling The Card You Look At Without Seeing The Pack.
    • To Tell A Card Thought Of
    • Three Jacks As Thieves, Caught By A King As A Policeman
    • To Burn A Card And Fin'd It In A Watch
    • How To Shift Cards
    • The Four Associates
    • To Make A Card Jump Out Of The Pack
    • How To Change Cards To Pictures
  • Chapter II
    • All Fours
    • Deceptions Used In The Game Of All Fours
    • How To...
$8
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PDF

Mystic Alexandre
A Sweet and Simple Swindle by Mystic Alexandre

Mr. T is an underground gambler, the man who wrote the Pro Guide to the Lucky Log, and the exclusive manual for "Bingo Bango". Now he brings you A Sweet and Simple Swindle. Two of them actually, because the PDF includes an additional bonus swindle with playing cards.

Both dead easy to do, no sleight of hand, no complicated tactics, just a sweet advantage to you, where the mark will believe they have the better of you all along. No marked cards or anything of the sort, both of these use a regular deck of playing cards that can be borrowed, so easy a kid could take advantage of this ... if...

$8.88
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T. Hayes
The Reference Guide to Early Works on Card Cheating by T. Hayes

This ebook presents an analytical review of works on card cheating that are written in English and published before 1900. Given this scope, The Reference Guide to Early Works on Card Cheating takes 151 publications, and documents the card cheating techniques that they describe. Only card techniques discussed in the context of cheating at card games are considered. The 146 defined techniques are used to evaluate the publications based on their breadth and their contribution to the literature. The breadth is indicated by the absolute number of techniques each work describes, and the contribution...

$20
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A Connoisseur
Annals of Gaming by A Connoisseur

The intentionally unassuming grey cover, designed to match the dull-sounding title, suggests a dry emotionless record of events is likely held within. However, this humble exterior belies the valuable secrets hidden within its pages. Annals of Gaming was an article series published over four years, between 1772 and 1775; its sole intention was to expose the sharpers, hustlers, and cheats, by detailing their methods of defrauding the unwary. Now, for the first time, every article in the original series has been retyped in full and published in a single volume of over 200 pages. This work covers over...

$39.50
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hardcover

John F. B. Lillard
Poker Stories by John F. B. Lillard

This is a collection of poker stores covering the time frame from 1845 - 1895. As the title page clearly states Lillard merely collected and edited them, he did not author them.

  • DEDICATION
  • PREFACE
  • CHAPTER I. TOLD OF STATESMEN
    • Webster And Clay
    • How An Illinois Congressman Was Backed By Uncle Sam
    • A Kentucky Colonel Who Drew On His Salary To Stay In The Game
    • Two Stories About Gen. Schenck
    • A Jersey Congressman's Leather Bluff
    • The Drummer Wilted
    • Hannibal Hamlin
    • The Six-Spot Of Diamonds
  • CHAPTER II. MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES
    • Six Aces In The Pack
    • His Chips Were The Wrong Color....
$15
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William James Florence
The Handbook of Poker by William James Florence

Also titled The Gentlemen's Hand-book of Poker, it is an excellent introduction to the game of poker. It not only covers the rules and some advice on how to play, but it also has a short chapter on cheating, a decent chapter on probabilities, and ends with a number of fun poker stories.

The chapter on probabilities corrects some of what Steinmetz wrote in The Gaming Table Volume 2. The book ends with an anecdote about the compiler himself.

  • Preface
  • Draw Poker
    • Introduction
    • Origin Of The Game
    • The Game
    • The Stakes
    • The Ante
    • The Hands
    • Playing A Hand Pat
    • The Hands Illustrated
    • The Draw
    • The Draw To Two Pairs
    • The Draw...
$10
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PDF

David A. Curtis
Queer Luck by David A. Curtis

Poker Stories from the New York Sun

  • Why he Quit the Game
  • Freeze-out for a Life
  • A Gambler's Pistol Play
  • Queer Runs of Luck
  • Storms's Straight Flush
  • For a Senate Seat
  • The Bill Went Through
  • Poker for High Stakes
  • "Overland Jack"
  • His Last Sunday Game
  • Foss Stopped the Game
  • He Played for His Wife
  • The Club's Last Game
1st edition 1896, 235 pages; PDF 66 pages.
$8
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PDF

H. W. Royal
Gambling and Confidence Games Exposed by H. W. Royal

A famous reformed gambler reveals a multitude of gambling house and street corner scams, swindles, and cons used to fleece the unwary public in this fascinating text.

Written by H. W. "Kid" Royal, this was originally put up as a pitch book for sale at his various lecture appearances, after he decided to "go straight." In fact, he had a funny way of selling them. He advertised the lecture as free, but he wouldn't let anyone leave until he had collected the price of the book.

While original copies of this book do occasionally turn up, they sell for big bucks ($275 from one recent magic auction)....

★★★★ $10
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PDF

Brick Tilley
Black Jack Hole Card Switch by Brick Tilley

This is an improvement in the handling of the Curry Turnover that makes this move easier to accomplish and more deceptive. A simple get-ready makes the exchange faster and infinitely more rewarding. It was perfected during hundreds of hours behind a Black Jack table without ever once being detected.

It can be used for magical purposes as well. Add this subtle weapon to your card arsenal.

1st edition 2021, PDF 4 pages, video 30 s.

★★★★★ $10
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PDF & MP4

John Scarne
10 Best Proposition Bets of America's Bigtime Gamblers by John Scarne

A proposition bet is one which appears to give the taker an even chance and at times the best of it, but does just the opposite. Like con men, proposition gamblers pretend to be pleasant, friendly, easy-going, good fellows who would never think of double-crossing anyone. They also usually pretend that their prepared proposition bets are something they just happened to think up on the spot. They take great pleasure in beating seasoned gamblers; money is not the main objective. It's the prestige and self-satisfaction they derive from having outsmarted a top gambler, be he friend or foe.

While...

★★★★★ $10
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Displaying 1 to 37 (of 133 products)
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