Whether this book would be helpful to you, the potential NFL bettor, depends largely on what kind of information you are looking for. Beat the Sports Books is primarily devoted to teaching the reader how to handicap his/her own NFL games -specifically, how to make your own lines. The author, Dan Gordon, has over 20 years of experience handicapping and betting on NFL games and gives the reader the benefit of this experience. He explains, in considerable detail and with many examples, how to calculate your own lines and power rankings and how to determine which bets are worth making. This is an in-depth course in line-making and takes concentration and persistence to fully absorb. The author also devotes one chapter to pointers for betting at different stages in the NFL season, which is simpler and might be worth considering even if you don't intend to make your own lines.

62 of the book's 165 pages are appendices. Appendix 1 follows one NFL team through an entire season in order to illustrate the finer points of calculating a team's power ranking over the course of a season. The second Appendix contains a full season (1996) of bets that the author made with explanations of why he made each bet. Included are some bets that he didn't make and reasons that he passed on those. The appendices could prove to be invaluable references if you intend to get serious about NFL betting, especially betting over the long haul.

There is some information in this book that is not about handicapping. The title of the book's first chapter is: "How Pro Football Is Bet and How the Point Spread is Set". It includes explanations of different kinds of bets (spreads, over-under, parlays, parlay cards, reverses, teasers) and explanations, with examples, of how the Las Vegas Sports Consultants set their lines each week. In chapter 2, the author goes on to explain how the media can affect betting, how touts work... These chapters contain a lot of interesting information that would be useful to both serious and casual NFL bettors.

Beat the Sports Books is really dedicated to teaching you how to determine what bets to make. There isn't much advice on precisely how to place those bets beyond the author's emphasis on trying the get the early lines and shopping for a fair price on your bet. There are no lists of sports books or internet casinos or instructions in how exactly to communicate what you would like to bet once you've found one. The information in Beat the Sports Books would seem to be intended for the relatively experienced bettor.

I'll risk repeating myself here, just to be clear: Beat the Sports Books is a lesson in handicapping NFL games with an overwhelming emphasis on making your own lines. Dan Gordon provides the reader with detailed instruction in the methods that he uses to calculate lines, based on over 20 years of experience as an NFL bettor. There is relatively little advice on other methods of handicapping. If you would like to be able to calculate your own lines in order to exploit the errors of the lines the sports books use, this is the book for you!

MANY YEARS AGO I PURCHASED THIS BOOK...BASICALLY ITS ROOTS PHILOSOPHY ON GAMBLING. HE GIVES SOUND ADVICE, THEORIES, AND WHAT WERE ONCE CURRENT TRENDS....ITS AN EASY READ AND A GAMBLERS DELIGHT, BUT ITS NOT A BOOK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE..SO SPORTS BETTING MUST BE YOUR CUP OF TEA..

Dick Mitchell's book is a very good read. He shows how to choose the logical contenders in a race as well as eliminate the false favorites. This alone can swing your profit margin way up. He explains the importance of pars and track profiles. Some of his automatic throw outs may seem in contradiction to everything you previously learned, but after you try them you will be amazed as to the accuracy of these few tips. The information learned from this book when used in conjunction with the Gordon Pine par times has greatly increased my bankroll.

The first three quarters of the book offer a highly entertaining and educational overview of sport betting. Moore takes the reader through all of the various types of bets and thoroughly explains how the odds for different sporting events are expressed (e.g. money line, point spread, etc.) He also defines much of the lingo in sports betting and devotes an outstanding chapter to the subject of examining (and debunking) many popular misconceptions.

However, Moore's betting system (the "Blindfold Method"), which he uses the last quarter of the book to unveil, is amusing at best. His theory, which suggests that bettors can exploit "soft lines" between different bookmakers, assumes that significant variations in odds can be found regularly ("one or two games per week"). In practice, this does not occur. Most bookmakers are well aware of the Vegas line for all sporting events and manage their betting imbalances by using "lay-off" operations instead of simply changing their lines (a fact completely ignored in the book). As with all betting systems, it is worthwhile to wonder why the author is writing about them instead of using them to make untold millions. For those that do put their faith in Moore's system, the "Blindfold Method" could not be more aptly named.

It's an excellent supplemental information required if you engage in parimutuel wagering. Particularly, if you need pedigree information on horses going at distances they have not before. Or first time starters. A very useful tool that others don't have.

Gambling has always been around in our culture. People bet on horses, dogs, play the lottery, and sports. Gambling in its varied forms has been used to fund both government and religious institutions. At times it was illegal to gamble but today everyone partakes in the gaming industry and the most notable group are teenagers.

A Sure Thing? explores the sociological world of gambling in all of its facets. It gives a brief history of gambling, lays out the views of those for and against legalized gambling, shares the stories of young people addicted to gambling and opens up the question of whether sports gambling should be legalized. This is an excellent book in introducing to teenagers an area of life that has become so common place in our society.

Author, Jeff Savage, lays out the issues, shares the negative and positive impacts about gambling and leaves the reader much better informed about the gaming industry. He also brings up the paradox of gambling being legal for some things and yet for sports, it is illegal because it can undermine the "integrity" of the game.

If you never discusssed the moral, ethical and political issues regarding gambling with your teenager, this is the book to have. Savage is not preachy in his presentation but is not afraid to share the hard facts of gamblings destructiveness on teenagers, sports figures and adults. His bibliography provides further resources in exploring the issue in depth.

Chuck Badone, Winning Horseracing Handicapping 2/E (Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie, 1999)

Badone, the selections guru at the newly-opened Lone Star Park, wrote a book on handicapping long ago, during his days of giving seminars at Turf Paradise. When Lone Star opened, they reprinted the book with a number of revisions from Badone, as a kind of new-fan primer. Too bad they kept the gramatically painful title, but other than that, there's little that will steer you wrong here.

If you've already read the basic handicapping texts, you're not going to find terribly much here you haven't read before, though Badone does put a few things into new perspectives. This book isn't aimed at the well-read horseplayer, however, but at the new patron. Badone lays his material out quickly and easily, but without the pedantry that mars a number of books for beginning handicappers. He's extremely easy to read, and his section on class changes is the easiest-to-understand I've ever read (not to mention one of the most solid; it's not Jim Quinn's _Class of the Field_, but for the beginning player, it's great stuff). Highly recommended for casual and new fans of Thoroughbred racing...

Dave Feldman's colorful career as a handicapper, writer, owner, and trainer in Chicago comes to life in this fast reading book. The stories are interesting and provide insights as well for bettors. Dave's experience in thoroughbred racing gives him the authority to provide the horse player with some helpful tips on what to look for and to avoid at the track.

Richard A. Cromie, Mr. Trifecta (ParlorGrand, 2000)

Handicapping books can be divided into two basic types: those that rely on solid information and those that rely on more nebulous information. 99.9% of the latter (I know if I say 'all,' someone will publish one that actually works) are complete and utter bunk. The majority of the 'nebulous information' books rely on one source of information: 'smart money.'

The concept of 'smart money' is that a horse's owner, trainer, and jockey have a better idea than most handicappers about how the horse will run. The obvious logical fallacy should be apparent: the so-called 'smart money' may know everything there is to know about their horse in the race, but are likely to know just as much as the next guy about every other horse in the race.

Mr. Trifecta is just this kind of insider-money book, taking an old system (looking for horses who have more money bet on them in the daily double pool than the win pool and assuming that's 'smart money') and applying it with a new angle (Cromie uses the pick three pool instead of the daily double pool). But it's nothing we haven't seen before, and while it's not the quickest road to the poorhouse, you're far better off with books from the former camp by authors like Tom Ainslie, Dick Mitchell, Jim Quinn, William Quirin, Mark Cramer, and the like. **, because it's short, to the point, and contains some good tall tales about track life.

This book is extremely easy to read. It only takes me probably 2 hours (4 subway trips of half an hour each) to finish this book as the idea presented in this book is very simple. In short, proportion of win odds to pick three odds + smart money in win odds + horse's condition on the paddock = selection. However, does this actually work?

I cannot give you a definite answer as there is no pick three odds like this in Hong Kong. However, I can imagine the author has made three major assumptions in his system as follows:-

1. Smart money tends to go to pick three pool instead of win pool.

2. There is an existence of smart money on win pool that causes the movement between prelimiary odds and morning line odds.

3. Smart money is actually smarter.

I cast doubt on the first 2 assumptions especially majority of the bets come into the pool at the last 5-7 minutes before a race (hence, early odds are not too accurate as smart money has not come in yet). This happens in Hong Kong.

As a serious horse racing "participant", I will recommend you a miss on this book.

Reviewer middletown, de United States either believes he is e e cummings or can't spell. Furthermore, what use is a system that runs through the numbers then says to look at the horses and possibly add the chalk? The use of a realistic system like that is to cash at the window more often. If I could pick winners just by looking at them I wouldn't have bought his book or used his system either, but since I did I've been able to leverage the facts he points out. Not only do I save by not needing the forms and not spending hours studying the sheets, I save by cashing more winners than I ever did before. If you buy this book for the price of a trifecta ticket consider that your first winner of many to come