Gambling Books

Project Roulette
Book List

Last updated: 10/12/2002 These books are listed in the order in which I have personally read them.



All About Roulette by John Gollehon List Price: $4.99 Paperback 1st Perigee edition (November 1987) ISBN: 0399514600 Dimensions (in inches): 0.22 x 6.84 x 4.14		Nice book on the basics of roulette. It first explains the basics of how to play roulette, and then it proceeds to outline wheel-clocking as the best strategy. However, it doesn't go into any details of a wheel-clocking system nor does it pursue any probability analysis of spins. A nice introduction to roulette, and that's it.



Beating the Wheel: The System That Has Won over Six Million Dollars from Las Vegas to Monte Carlo by Russell T. Barnhart List Price: $14.95 Paperback (September 1992); Lyle Stuart ISBN: 0818405538 Dimensions (in inches): 0.65 x 8.92 x 5.91		Great book. The author gives a good overview of the primary method of wheel clocking, which is biased-wheel play. And, he backs up this method by citing numerous implementations of it along with statistical calculations to serve as a sanity check. The only downfalls to the book are: 1) the constant switching between a 37 and a 38 number wheel. 2) Great explanations of betting on single numbers, but lacks doing statistics across many numbers. 3) Lacks details of most of the math, which is good for a math expert, but not the average person. Definitely worth reading!



Secrets of Winning Roulette by Marten Jensen List Price: $16.95 Paperback - 256 pages 1 Ed edition (April 1998); Cardoza Pub ISBN: 0940685957 Dimensions (in inches): 0.61 x 8.46 x 5.59		Great book as well! The author starts out with a good explanation of how to play roulette and then proceeds to explain all ways of possibly winning at roulette. It details many of the known systems of betting, something many books don't explain. However, a word of advice -- each betting system requires a personal tweak from its user and careful prior analysis should be made to avoid getting in too deep that you exhaust your bank-roll. See Winning Systems on this site for system play analysis.



How to Win at Casino Games (Teach Yourself) by Belinda Levez List Price: $5.95 Paperback - 96 pages (November 1997); Teach Yourself ISBN: 0844230782 Dimensions (in inches): 0.28 x 7.77 x 5.05		Nice explanation of many of the popular casino games. However, this book is designed more for European casinos than American casinos and as such is a good book to learn the differences between the two. As far as American Roulette, this book doesn't really say anything that the other books listed here don't already cover.



American Roulette Tracker by Serena L. Ng List Price: $12.99 Paperback - 110 pages (October 1, 1998) Sereken Associates ISBN: 0966873505 Web-Site: http://www.gambling-win.com		This must be the first 110 page book I've read in under 5 minutes, and no I'm not a speed reader. The typesetter for this book had a very easy time: type 2 pages, then cut, and paste 38 times! Everything in this book could be written in 4 pages! (And that includes the title page!) Can we say "table needed"? As for the supposed "winning system", there is absolutely no mathematical reasoning or logic for the number choices given. There is no even distribution for the sequences. The numbers have every appearence of being randomly generated numbers, created from a very poor random-number generator. For roulette players in Europe and other places where single-zero wheels are used, forget this book entirely as the system applies only to double-zero wheels. And, for players here in America stuck with a double-zero wheel, you'd probably do just as well to randomly pick your own groups of numbers to use in betting progressions -- I doubt you'd do any worse.



The Basics of Winning Roulette by J. Edward Allen List Price: $3.95 Paperback - 64 pages 2nd edition (November 1992); Cardoza Pub ISBN: 0940685264 Dimensions (in inches): 0.20 x 6.70 x 4.24		The overall idea for this book is good -- a simple introduction to playing roulette accompanied by some short examples of winning systems, but some how that gets lost in the translation. The description of how to play occupies a good 60% of the book, but numerous typographical errors, and worse yet, technical errors plague this description. For example, the five-number bet illustrated on page 21 isn't the correct five-number bet at all, but rather is a three-number bet on 0-2-00. This is real confusing for the first time roulette player, which is the only real target audience for this book. In addition to technical errors and typographicals, there are many out-right contradictions. For example, on page 40 we read "What they don't know is that there is no law of averages.". On page 43, we read "... as we have shown, the game is one of pure chance governed by the law of averages...". Only one common winning system is mentioned, the Martingale, and then the author turns around and says that it really isn't a good system because of losing streaks and suggests just "playing numbers". Why did the author not chose a "good system" and explain mathematically why it is a good system? Or is he trying to say that no such system exists and that the only way to win is not to play?



Spin Roulette Gold : Secrets of Beating the Wheel by Frank Scoblete List Price: $14.95 Paperback - 229 pages (May 1997); Bonus Books ISBN: 1566250749 Dimensions (in inches): 0.69 x 9.00 x 5.99		This is an absolutely fabulous book! The author first explains several layout systems and then shows why no layout system will win in long-term play. But, he doesn't leave it hanging there. He counters this by explaining several wheel-tracking and strategy methods that can actually overcome the house-advantage. This book is a perfect addition in the goals of our project and is must reading. We will look at his strategies and techniques in our Winning Systems section.



The Biased Wheel Handbook by Mark Billings and Brent Fredrickson List Price: $79.95 Spiral-bound - 172 pages Available through Gambler's Book Club 1996, Saros Designs Publishing Dimensions (in inches): 0.4 x 8.50 x 11.00		This book is absolutely spectacular! It is expensive because it comes accompanied with a 3-1/2" floppy containing a biased-wheel toolkit. This book does a super job in relating statistics to wheel analysis in a very practical way. The book is mathematically intense, but the authors very wisely split every chapter into two parts -- the first in "plain-text" and the second containing the math that supports the "plain-text". Unlike Beating the Wheel book above, this book describes why it is easier to detect sector biases and then narrows it to single numbers, instead of just focusing on the more difficult single-number bias. Rather than being primarily a story book telling about people who have exploited biased wheels, this book is a practical step-by-step guide to detecting biased wheels. Additionally, this book introduces the Klotz Criterion for betting on potential biases which allows for progressive betting while working to detect biases. This book is a must-read book and greatly supplements the goals of our project and quest for Winning Systems. In fact, this book is so good, if it ever goes out-of-print to where it can't be readily found or purchased, I will scan it and place it online for all to download!



Gambling Scams by Darwin Oritz List Price: $12.95 Paperback Reissue edition (April 1990); Lyle Stuart ISBN: 0818405295 Dimensions (in inches): 0.83 x 8.94 x 5.86		This is an interesting book that says a little bit about all different forms of gambling scams. It mainly deals with sleight-of-hand with card games, but does have some interesting information on other casino games such as craps, roulette, and slot machines. It is worthwhile reading if you have ever wondered about how some of the scams are pulled off, as it discusses more ways than you have probably ever imagined. As for our studies in roulette, there is no new information that isn't covered by our other books, especially Secrets of Winning Roulette. The 3.5 star rating isn't from lack of quality information, but from a lack of relevance to our topic. As for quality and writing style, much of the information could have been condensed. It was as if the author wrote each chapter separately and then put them together. But, all in all it is a good book.



The Newtonian Casino The Eudaemonic Pie by Thomas A. Bass List Price: £8.99 Paperback - 352 pages (29 August, 1991); Penguin Books ISBN: 0140145931 Available through Amazon.com in the UK Paperback - 336 pages (November, 2000); Universal Publishers ISBN: 0-595-14236-2 Available online (free!) www.iuniverse.com		This book should have been #1 on this list, but it took me 3 months to get it. I'm beginning to wonder if the mafia had something to do with making this thing so hard to get. Actually, ordering the UK version, called The Newtonian Casino, isn't difficult and is rather easy to obtain. But that book is nowhere the be found in the US, nor is the original US version, called The Eudaemonic Pie. I finally located a used copy of Eudaemonic Pie in the US, but it was no easy matter. Let me explain: The Eudaemonic Pie is the original US Print edition, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1985. It was reprinted in 1986 by Vintage Books, and again later by Random House in 1992. All three are out-of-print and very difficult to get. The Newtonian Casino is the UK version and is easily obtainable in the UK, however, no US bookstore has ever heard of The Newtonian Casino. Why? Good question. This book captures the full essence of this Roulette Project, as the Eudaemons were working on one that is similar. The book gives tremendous insight and many new ideas of ways to approach and solve many of the problems encountered with such a project. Though the Eudaemons did not fully succeed, considering the new technology created since the 1970's, there is no reason I can see that would prevent such a device today. In fact every problem they had, I have found ways of using today's technology to solve. What they did prove was that 1) It actually works and can be done. 2) Given the right technology it becomes a feasible project. And 3) They showed how a casino environment can be a hostile place for electronics. There are many good hints and references to several other works, works by people such as Edward Thorp (also material difficult to obtain). As copies of this material become available, much of it will be placed online. This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone working on a similar project.




	Our Rating System:

	Don't Bother Reading These Don't Bother Reading These Don't Bother Reading These Not Really Worth Reading, Especially not for this Project Maybe Worth Reading, but Not for this Project Maybe Worth Reading, but Not for this Project Worth Reading, but Doesn't Necessarily Contribute to this Project Worth Reading, but Doesn't Necessarily Contribute to this Project Worth Reading, Contributes to this Project Worth Reading, Contributes Extremely Well to this Project Very Worth Reading, Contributes Extremely Well to this Project




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