Or, fortuna, her temple and shrine. The true philosophy and ethics of gambling.
Excerpt from the publisher's note:
Mr. Romain's book, ... is replete with learning, and original in conception. The philosophy is broad and the tone dignified. Patient research is manifest in every page. Every branch of knowledge has been made to contribute its force to the argument. The work is a mine of information in political speculation, social science and moral philosophy. Mr. Romain is obviously in sympathy with the widest possible circle of culture. For that reason, if for no other, what he has to...
The amusing cartoons about poker and its players make this a worthwhile read for any poker enthusiast. Briefly goes into cheating methods.
Do you want to know of a game which is practically devoid of giggling? Some profanity all of the time and now and then a dash of manslaughter, but hardly any laughter except an occasional cackle from the dirty dog who runs a whiz in a jack-pot? Referring, of course, to poker.
Poker - essence of the adventuring traits of the ambitious Yankee. The world's champion recipe for getting something for nothing in a hurry. The only game in which courage so...
Excerpt from the preface:
The vice of gambling is not so generally spread through the American nation as it is in several European countries, but it is spreading gradually even here and is tolerated in its seemingly innocent forms where one would not expect to find it. It is time that the matter should receive the earnest study of all who have the highest good of their country at heart.
A treatise comprising of the analysis of principles, calculation of chances, codification of rules, study of situations, glossary of poker terms necessary to a comprehensive understanding of the great American Game.
This is an excellent introduction on draw poker and poker in general. It does not only cover the basics of rules and odds, but also provides a real introduction to the intricacies and challenges of poker and offers the beginner the first and vital lessons in the most important aspects that factor into becoming a proficient poker player.
... and other practices like the same; a myrror very necessary for all young gentilmen and other sodenly enabled by worldly abundance, to loke in. Newly set forth for theire behoufe.
This work contains a vivid description of the tricks and practices in vogue amongst gamblers of the sixteenth century. Written by a Puritan preacher, it is a scathing critique of the gambling culture during Elizabethan England and the moral outrage surrounding it. It has many curious allusions to the manners and customs of the period. Featuring firsthand accounts of dice games and their negative societal effects....
The system that's won more than six million - from La Vegas to Monte Carlo.
With 170 wheels in Las Vegas, 144 in Atlantic City, thousands in Europe, and hundreds in the Far East, roulette undoubtedly the world's most popular casino game. But can the game be beaten, except by luck? Yes, says Russell Barnhart, an expert in gambling strategies and a roulette winner for more than thirty years. In Beating the Wheel, he shares his valuable strategy.
Barnhart bases his findings on tens of thousands of spins of a biased wheel - one which behaves a certain way due to damage. Although every casino...
This is a compilation of two booklets that gambling house supply companies sold. The first part, Master Key, describes various ways playing cards can be marked. Illustrations of many marking methods and systems are included. Some of these methods go under the names of shade, glaze, block-out, line, build-up, trim, sorts, etch, swell natural or edge work, and others. The author of this section is unknown. It appears to be culled from various gambling house supply catalogs.
The second part, Run-Up Systems, was culled without credit from S. W. Erdnase's famous book The Expert at the Card Table. It explains several methods of stacking...
This is one of the earliest works describing card artifice. It describes how unsuspecting folks, and even those who are careful, are being lured into playing cards. Once they play, they are easy prey for card advantage players.
For example, a simple card trick is used and then explained to get the trust of the mark. The trick exposed is "The Three Knaves", where three knaves magically gather together after a cut even though one was returned to the top of the deck, the second to the middle, and the third to the bottom.
The subtitle reads:
Now daily practiced by sundry lewd persons called...
Knowledge of how confidence men and cheats operate is undeniably the best personal defense against them, and Eugene Villiod, the Parisian private detective, exposes about all we need to know for self-protection - and does so entertainingly. All the important cheats including short-changing, pickpocketing, three card monte, and others are covered.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this book, which was published in its original French edition in 1922, is that the same swindles are not only still with us today but that they are also perpetrated in the same ways.
Translated from the French...
Translation of La Machine à Voler, a French classic revealing the legal circumvention of gambling laws to establish crooked gambling clubs and casinos. It also exposes cheating methods for baccarat.
This work is primarily interesting to the magician due to its exposure of cheating methods at baccarat including sleight-of-hand techniques. These are explained in detail including photos.
Excerpt from the preface:
Read this book, read it carefully. The man who wrote it, though lacking in talent, is sure of what he says, and says nothing he can’t prove. Once having read the book, go to the casino and look...
Containing a complete disclosure of the secrets of the art, as practiced by professional gamblers.
The author only identifies themselves as 'An Adept'. It covers a wide range of gambling scams, and crooked card games, including card table artifice. The information is relevant today and describes the multivarious ways marks are separated from their money.
Or the life, adventures, and personal experience of Jonathan H. Green.
It commences at his parentage and gives the whole history of the Life of the Reformed Gambler from the time of his birth until his reformation and conversion. It is a book designed as a warning to the young men of this country and is one that all should read and take warning and advice from. Beautifully illustrated from various scenes in the course of his life.
This video may not be magic, but it showcases some of the most astonishing blackjack cheating moves ever captured. You won't be disappointed. It demonstrates exactly how each move is executed, featuring cheating moves from both the outside and inside. Filmed from surveillance and floorman's perspectives, it offers a comprehensive view of the action in the blackjack pit. Watch the video and see if you can spot the move before it is explained. These are all sleight of hand moves, no electronics.
Moves shown and explained:
Gaffed games, clever cons, sensational swindles - how to spot the bunco artist before he cheats you.
This may well be the greatest exposé of gambling methods, swindles, confidence games and carnival midway hustles ever published. No matter if you're a magician, gambler, carnival midway patron (or operator), law enforcement professional, or simply want to protect yourself, you're going to enjoy this book.
Especially valuable to those with an interest in carnival and gaming paraphernalia are the methods used to gaff the devices as sold back in the day by H. C. Evans, K. C. Card Co., and...
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.
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...
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...
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...
"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
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...
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...
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.
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...
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.
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;...
A dissuasive to the young against games of chance.