"Bad Habits" aims to change the way people think about the issues of personal freedom and social responsibility in America. John Burnham takes drinking, smoking, drugs, gambling, sexual misbehavior, and swearing, all traditionally considered "minor vices" and follows their path into acceptability and colossal profitability. As he states in his preface, he started out thinking he would have a nice laugh at how neo-Puritans can't stand to see other people have a little fun. But by the end of his research, he had stopped laughing.

Burnham made one key decision: rather than focus on the reformers (and just assume that everyone "naturally" wants a drink or a smoke), he decided to focus on the anti-reformers. What was driving them? As he found, money, of course. Pressure for repeal or liberalization of laws and social mores against the "minor vices" starts with back-stage funding by those who sell both the item in question-brewers, casino owners, marijuana dealers, pornographers-and related items, from glass-bottle manufacturers to money launderers. This is not big news, although it's worth repeating that agitation for liberalization of drug laws, for example, has always been funded chiefly by drug traders and their financial allies. Moreover, as Burnham shows, legalization is only the first step. After all, if marijuana is legal and no one smokes it, then the investment in funding legalization organizations has been wasted. Not to worry: Burnham demonstrates that just as prohibition really does work in reducing the "bad habits," so too legalization and a good ad campaign really do increase the number of indulgers. Of course an ad campaign needs to be directed at the right audience. Just as tobacco executives do, pornographers, drug-dealers, and liquor merchants also know that their profits comes from heavy users and heavy users need to be started when they are young.

But who would believe such obviously self-interested advocates? Here Burnham builds on social history to identify "lower-order parochialism" as a significant force advocating and celebrating the "bad habits." Formed in America's 19th century urban areas where minor-vice merchants, exemplified by the saloon-keeper, became intimately intertwined with the bachelor sub-culture, new immigrants, and the Bohemian scene, "lower-order parochialism" validated the "bad habits" as a positive act of rebellion against the dominant Yankee, middle-class, often evangelical, coalition who supported reform campaigns. In the barracks of World Wars I and II, this lower-order parochialism was able to break out of the urban red-light districts and make abstention seem deviant. Those who made money off the minor vices found an increasing public for their campaigns first to normalize and then to celebrate the minor vices. From the repeal of prohibition onwards, Burnham traces the process by which our mores are approximating those of the Victorian underworld.

The minor vice industrial complex has always found vital support in irresponsible members of the upper class: they indulge, they invest, and they find taxes on legal vices can reduce their own. The spread of state-sponsored lotteries as alternatives to income tax increases is a case in point.

But what about the lives ruined by drinking, lung cancer, gambling, and so on? Burnham details how the minor vice industrialists heavily fund organizations that study and combat these problems-but only as long as the organizations treat them as a problem for the individuals concerned and not a problem for the industry. Funding research on alcoholism or "compulsive gambling" forms a wonderful counterpart to the insistent advocacy of more and more "moderate drinking," "responsible gambling," etc. Only where no "responsible" use exists (as in smoking) do they have to resort to stonewalling.

After a century of growth, the minor-vices are not simply isolated entities; they work together synergistically as a combined force aiming to destroy the standards of the "prudes" and replace them with those of the "lewds." Casinos and brothels can't stay in business without selling liquor, liquor and tobacco products are the major advertisers for pornographic magazines, tobacco companies buy up liquor giants, Hugh Hefner financed the marijuana legalization lobby, etc. Thus the significance of swearing: it does not make any money but is a powerful way of outraging "prude" sensibilities and publicly announcing lower-order standards

Burnham does not wish to sound like one of the more hysterical opponents of "bad habits." He does not advocate new campaigns of Prohibition. He bends over backwards to avoid dramatization, and if anything pulls his punches. The massive documentation in Burnham's footnotes show the care he has taken not to push his evidence farther than it will go. But his portrait of the minor-vice industrial complex is all the more troubling for that.

I thought this book is one of the most thorough and helpful books regarding dealing with gambling addiction. It enlightens on how you can protect yourself from the throes of gambling. It provides information that will help you understand and deal with the illness. Excellent book!

I thought this book was very informative and especially liked the second half of the book dealing with wagering and how to formulate exotic tickets.

Of course, I wrote the book.

Back in the late 70's and early 80's, Ken Uston was the king of blackjack. The Big Player is a story of his adventures where he gets recruited into a team of card counters to play and win blackjack against the casinos. This book does not present any card counting systems. It is a book about the stories he had after going up against the casinos.

He had a wild ride and discusses the never ending battle between his teams and the casinos. How they'd get barred, different tactics and strategies they used, team play, etc.

If you are interested in card counting of blackjack, you'll love this story.

It astounds me how these guys, while being so very handsome fitting thoroughly into the category of boy band, can pull off such funny and satiriacl songs. Brilliant!

My late father was a bookie in his younger days so I could relate to the story better than most. Dad purchased a copy of this when it came out in the 1970's and laughed all the way through it.

Some of the sports references are dated now (the book is about 30 years old) but a realistic insight into a bookmaker's life and incredibly funny. The writer has a great style and really enjoyable.

I bought a new copy and re-read recently. Glad I did. ...

A month ago I received a gift of the book "Blackjack the Smart Way" with its audio book "Preparing You to Win", and I just want to pass along how great Richard Harvey's system is. (In fact I've just ordered a set to give as a birthday present). The book is easy to read and understand. I like his sensible approach to money and bet management. Also, unlike other books on blackjack it has a lot of illustrations that make things very clear. Now I'm winning consistently; before, I had trouble putting together a winning streak. I'd win one day and lose on another. It's much more fun now that I know what I'm doing. The audio book is a good way of reviewing in your spare time what you read. In addition, it talks about the "Circle of 13", Harvey's own invention, which really helped me understand the math behind the game.I have already used it to win some hands that I might otherwise have lost.I really surprised a dealer a couple of times by making unorthodox moves based on the "Circle of 13". When I won, he replied how lucky I had been, but I knew it wasn't luck.

A must read for any serious poker player, this small book is absolutely the best collection of common poker tells. Highly recommended!

This is an amazing book. It's so entertaining and easy to read you don't even realize how much you're learning. The author asks questions I'd never even thought of, then he answers them so clearly and logically that I had no trouble absorbing the information. I've read a lot of blackjack books and was never really clear on the whys behind some of the recommendations. With this book, now I know what all the others were talking about.

I have seen an advance copy of the "The Official U.S. Casino Chip Price Guide" by James Campiglia and Steve Wells and I was very impressed. I will only use this new book from now on.