This book provides the basic guidlines a golfer would use to gamble during the playing of one round of golf. The explaination of the gambling games and how they are played is most instructive. This instruction teaches the beginning golf gambler how to place bets and score specific games in a manner to allow the beginer to protect himslef from cheating or being decieved by a experienced charlatan. This book lacks coverage and discription of how golf gambling would be applied to a charity event sponsored by a golf course and jointly played by all golf club members.

I've only read three books on blackjack, so I am no expert on gambling books. HOWEVER......

If you want a book that reads like a transcript of a gambler telling stories over drinks in a bar, name dropping old Vegas stars, talking about the big scores and the big losses, spouting opinions on lotteries and horses, and bragging about nailing hookers, by all means this is your book.

But if you're looking for advice on winning blackjack, look elsewhere.

The subtitle is "how to beat blackjack as a way of life." This is very misleading. There is good advice, mind you, but it's obvious and not worth filling a book. The advice is "quit winners." In any gambling situation, a player will go up and down. Quit when you're up. This is good advice, and it's what I already practice. But I didn't need to buy this book to tell me this.

As this is marketed as a book on playing blackjack, I'd think that instead of giving us the stats on high roller slot machines, or recounting keno stories, or any of the other endless off topic rants, there might be more about money management at the actual table. Showing me a "scorecard" listings wins at various casinos doesn't tell me how those positive numbers got there.

Congrats to Mr Levy on a nice brag book, admittedly getting publishing justification after two really good streaks. But by that standard, I guess I could write my own, having two streaks in a row.

I found much more helpful material for a casual player in Jerry Patterson's Blackjack: A Winner's Handbook. If you're a frequent player, you won't even take Levy's book seriously.

Extremely basic text that relies largely on pictures to convey the content. Either an example of the dumbing down of both a complex industry and a complicated subject or the future of technical and professional education. Purchased it to consider using in a class I teach in Casino management at the junior college level--felt it was aimed at too junior an audience.

Do not buy this book if you are looking for a set of guaranteed strategies for winning roulette. The author tells the beginner how the game works and describes a series of well-known betting strategies. As the author himself points out, none of the strategies are expected to win after any significant length of playing time.

The research utilized in this book is faulty--at least as far as Deadwood is concerned. Gaming has absolutely saved this community and has done a fantastic job of restoring the town. The balance has shifted in this community and the authors of this book have released their findings too early. It is a shame that the innovative idea that Deadwood had is being criticized for destroying the history of the community. The authors need to return to this community and see the new emphasis of cultural tourism.

for the money i expected far more hands and theories

This book is very poorly written. It is as sickening to endure as a high-school pep rally. "You can do it! Keep trying, you'll get there! Rah Rah Rah". There is a lot of useless blather and no real content or strategy for playing in poker tournaments, just lists of general and vague advice. It is mostly just a bunch of quotes from professional players taken from other books, magazines, etc. I don't think the author interviewed any of the people she quotes in the book, and if she did, it is not apparent. Also, this book addresses mostly re-buy tournaments. Freeze-outs are mentioned in passing, but not really discussed. Then again, nothing in this book is really addressed anyway. If you are a beginner do what I did: Go to your local bookstore, buy a cup of coffee and read this thin tome (140 pages or so) in about an hour and put it back on the shelf. If you are an experienced tournament player, just get the coffee and skip the book.

I was disappointed that there was little new information from his last book. Most of the additional machines he listed were clearly not played much by him and he did not include information that I felt was reliable. Using the methods in his last book, I had some good luck, but some of his advice on certain machines clearly did not work and he did not make adjustments based on what the casinos have done. Unfortunately, the opportunity to profit from banking machines has nearly gone away and perhaps these books are part of the reason.

Had liked Konik's earlier book and so I was excited to read this one. It's slow, tedious, boring and not worth the price of admission. I am giving the book two stars because one or two of the articles were "fair" and even had a surprise or two buried among the hashed-over stories. If you know anything about gambling, you will not be surprised or enlightened by this volume, which seems to be rushed and even banged out. Let's hope Konik's next book is better.

William L. Scott, Total Victory at the Track (Amicus, 1988)

The late Scott concludes his handicapping trilogy with Total Victory at the Track, a book that both builds on his two earlier works (Investing at the Racetrack and How Will Your Horse Run Today?) and introduces another concept that ties them together. While Scott's work isn't bad, and the foundations upon which it lays are solid enough, there are some blunders in here that a novice wouldn't make. Whether to blame Scott or his editors is an arguable point, but the effect is the same; a novice coming into this book is going to pick up some bad information indirectly. My advice: buy this book if you're experienced enough at horseplaying to know how to read the Daily Racing Form's past performances and result charts, and be on the lookout for the errors. They are everywhere.

That said, the methods outlined here are certainly solid ones, as the workout in the back of the book shows (I'm doing my own testing on it, since these things seem to change on an almost daily basis in the horse biz), and while Scott isn't promising rose gardens, nor enough money to buy the land and plant the roses, it would seem that what he offers is at least enough to turn losers into break-even types or winners, if they're willing to do a little work to get there. It just seems that the path might be a little easier to follow without the glaring Daily Racing Form-related errors that pepper the text. ** 1/2