I bought this book thinking it would be filled with anecdotal material. I had hopes it would be a fun book about how lives have changed (for better or worse) after winning a large sum of money. It was not. Hitting the Jackpot is a treatise based on interviews of Finnish lotto winners. It reads like a textbook. There are some quotes from the winners, but basically, this book is boring. I had to force my way to the end of it. I would not buy it again, but someone interested in sociological studies might find a use for it.

As an experienced baccarat player who has experimented with many systems and been very successful with one, I found that the book exaggerates the probability of winning and recommends some systems that will only lead to losing your bankroll. The section that claims that "thinking lucky" will enhance your game, for example. Nothing really new in this one.

One gets the feeling that the author is a competent poker player but has never really played strip poker. The photo opportunity for a book like this was completely missed. It would have been much more interesting had the results of a game in progress been photographed instead of cutsy models in absurd costumes. The book was a disappointment.

This book should be considered for a "young readers" level. After completing (1 hour) you will not have any more practical knowledge on this subject than what you could gain by walking through a casino and observing. At $61.00 this book is overpriced by $55.00 when measured against value. If you are serious about this subject try "Casino Operations Management" by Kilby/Fox (best) or "An Introduction To The Casino Entertainment Industry" by Eade.

One of the worst books about gambling that I ever read (and I read many of them).

First of all, it is too old: written in April 2001, that's more than two years ago, and that's not good for a world (the internet) that's changing daily.

Even not considering this, it doesn't give any particular advice or original consideration. Every chapter is filled out with questions that are, in the end, not answered efficacely. And if you ever played at least one online casino, you'll know more that he does.

But the worst part is that he gives wrong indications about Blackjack, Roulette, and Craps strategy. Anyone who knows the odds and basic strategy for these games can understand that. And the money management part is wrong, too.

My suggestion, go find another good gambling book.

The author, a self described "professional gambler", simply doesn't understand the game of video poker. While he jokes about being a high school dropout with "street smarts", he unfortunately doesn't understand anything about probability theory or the expected value of return calcultions required to optimize the return on what potentially can be one of the few potentially profitable casino games. In short, his advise on how to play video poker contain many mathemetical errors if optimizing return is your goal.

First he starts by telling you should play table blackjack instead, but if you are too timid to try to learn blackjack, you can minimize your losses by playing video poker his way. He doesn't seem to understand certain video poker games are positive expectation games (unlike blackjack, unless you can track the cards). His advice will quickly turn a positive expectation game (e.g., Duces Wild has a 100.7% expected payback if played flawlessly) into a negative one. One glaring example of his ignorance is "play the minimum for awhile until you see how he machine is paying". The fact is the greatest expected return is achieved by always playing max coins. He doesn't seem to understand each hand is a completely independent event from the prior hand. Some of the hands he says to "hold" are just wrong.

Parting shot: if the author is such as clever professional gambler why does he need to write books like this to make money?

A poorly written story that occurs in the old west. The main character is a female con artist, gambler. The entire plot is totally predictable.

It would appear that this "book" was produced on a home computer and a photocopy machine. It is 27-pages long and held together with a plastic binder. The information in this book is sparse at best and advocates an ultra conservative style of play. While most authors rightly suggest a tight-aggresive style of play, some of this author's suggestions seem to be a bit extreme and often are not consistent. For example in the practice hand section, which takes up 9 of the book's 27 pages, the author suggests that with a pair of Aces over fives after four cards one should bet the maximum but fold if you are raised, but in the same section says that with a pair of kings over fives after four cards one should raise to the maximum and then fold if someone re-raises you. My advice is that your money is better spent on one of the many other poker books out there.

This book is just to bland and out of order to be of any use to the modern horseplayer

I was looking forward to this book on Omaha Holdem for several reasons: a) there are very few books on the game available and b) Bob Ciaffone has written some good books on other forms of poker. But this book gets a thumbs down and here's why:

1) It's way too short at just 106 pages. That just isn't room to even begin to go into Omaha Holdem.

2) There's very little information here: Page one is devoted to the "Popularity of the Game." Page two "The Rules". Page 3 "The Showdown." Pages 4-5 "Origin of Omaha." Pages 6-8 are about community card poker. Pages 9-13 are about betting and the blind structure. Page 14-15 are about learning to read the board in Omaha (you must use 2 cards from yourhand and 3 from the board). Pages 16-18 are about "Should you learn Omaha?". Pages 19-23 are about comparing Omaha and Texas holdem. And remember, this book is only 106 pages long so there's no much left for actual strategy.

3) Pages 91-97 are about tournaments.
4) pages 98-101 are about "Future Ideas for Omaha".

I simply found that there was barely enough information to even get started. For some reason this book is shorter than any of Ciaffone's other books even though Pot Limit Omaha
"represents the ideal form of poker" to the author. I wish there were more information here but there simply isn't. Buyer beware, this book is short, not in-depth, and will provide only the very basics of beginning Omaha.