Secrets of Gambling
by Hugh Miller

This is a great book on the secrets of how to cheat with cards and dice at many popular games - a guide to dishonest gambling. It offers a good overview of the various methods from mechanical cheating methods to sleight of hand.

1st edition 1970, original 128 pages; PDF 82 pages.

Table of Contents

7. Introduction
13. Cheating at cards
13. Mechanical Methods: marking cards, sorts, deck switches, edge marking, daub, punch/nail marks
33. Strippers: types of strippers, Vernon's "Bathroom Strippers"
36. Locaters: short, corner shorts, thick cards, long cards, ridge/breather crimps
40. Holdouts: Kepplinger type, bug, card index, magnetic cards, ring holdouts
48. Shiners
51. Confederates: signals, hand signals, other body signals, electronic communication
61. Card Handling
61. Palming: 3 top palms, gamblers flat palm, 3 bottom palms
66. False Shuffling: strip-out riffle shuffle, gamblers false shuffle, to retain a top stock, faro
73. False Cutting: a false cut, slip cut, Vernons "The Cold Deck Cut"
76. Crooked Dealing: seconds, bottoms
79. Miscellaneous Swindles: double lift peek, restoring a cut, top change, locaters, confederates
85. The Greatest Swindles
87. Dice: loads, caps, shaved dice, beveled dice, mis-spotted dice, magnets
92. Detecting Fake Dice
95. Crooked Dice Handling: 3 controls, blanket roll, switching
98. Find the Lady (three card Monte)
102. The Three Shell game
104. The Endless Belt (this is the chain loop swindle)
105. Elusive Aces: a brief discussion of mis-indexed gaff cards, for use in the three card Monte or other card-based scams
108. Roulette
113. Safe Bets: several mathematical and proposition type wagers
123. The Odds
125. Dice (odds)
127. Bingo (odds)
127. Blackjack (odds)
128. Poker (odds)
128. Postscript

Publisher: Martin Breese