The Gambling World

Get into the minds of the greatest gamblers of all time. Read in-depth interviews with eight masters of the games. Learn how they think, how they play, and what made them successful. The interview subjects include: Billy Walters (sports betting), Chip Reese (poker), Doyle Brunson (poker), Mike Svobodny (backgammon), Stan Tomchin (backgammon and sports betting), Cathy Hulbert (blackjack and poker), Alan Woods (blackjack and horse racing), and Tommy Hyland (blackjack).

There are now signs that, after decades of phenomenal growth, the era of unrestrained gambling liberalisation may be coming to an end. However, the power of the Gambling Establishment is formidable, and it will certainly fight back. Drawing on research and policy examples from around the world, the book provides a unified understanding of the dangerousness of modern commercialised gambling, how its expansion has been deliberately or inadvertently supported, and how the backlash is now occurring. The term Gambling Establishment is defined to include the industry which sells gambling, governments which support it, and a wider network of organisations and individuals who have subscribed to the ‘responsible gambling’ Establishment discourse. Topics covered include the psychology of how gambling is now being advertised and promoted and the way it is designed to deceive gamblers about their chances of winning; the increased exposure of young people to gambling and the alignment of gambling with sport; understanding the experience of gambling addiction; the various public health harms of gambling at individual, family, community and societal levels; and how evidence has been used to resist change. The book’s final chapter offers the author’s manifesto for policy change, designed with Britain particularly in mind but likely to have relevance elsewhere. With detailed examples given of the ways a number of countries are responding to these threats to their citizens’ health, this book will be of global interest for academics, researchers, policymakers and service providers in the field of gambling or other addictions specifically, and public health and social policy generally.

Gambling captures as nothing else the drama of the "long eighteenth century" between the age of religious wars and the age of revolutions. The society that was confronted with games of chance pursued as commercial ventures also came to grips with unprecedented social mobility, floated by new wealth from new sources created fortunes from trade in sugar, cotton, ivory, silk, tea, or enslaved human beings. Likewise, play for money was prominent in the public imagination as money itself, deployed through an ever expanding and ever more sophisticated range of mechanisms, increasingly invaded public awareness, as when prospective spouses in period fiction were rated in terms of annual income as if they were municipal bonds. Similarly, the archetypal figure of the gambler captured the imagination of the public in fiction, media, and politics. At the same time, new interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics - encouraged and bankrolled by those in power - fostered a new and unprecedented appreciation for mathematical probability and its applications, opening the possibility that games of chance might be pursued as a profitable commercial venture. The Gambling Century focuses like no previous work on those who enabled, facilitated, and profited from gambling, as well as on efforts to regulate or outlaw it. Using extensive archival material as well as printed sources, it follows its subjects from the Court to the coffeehouse, to private clubs and "at homes" in townhouses, all of which prefigure that quintessentially modern gambling space, the casino.

This volume contains an Open Access chapter. Establishing a scholarly platform to inform interventions in research and policymaking, this book demonstrates the importance of sociology in understanding sports gambling in a global age.

A revised and updated edition of the blackjack player’s bible with complete information on the odds, betting strategies, and much more “A significant contribution to the literature of blackjack . . . I recommend the book to beginners as well as experts.”—Edward O. Thorpe, author of Beat the Dealer This is the most comprehensive guide ever published on blackjack, the only casino game in which a knowledgeable player can gain an advantage over the house. It features the Hi-Opt I, the most powerful simple betting system available today, and has been revised and updated to include the rules of play in Atlantic City as well as the latest information on international playing rules. No matter what your level of experience, it will teach you how to make the most money possible playing your cards. You'll learn: • How to pick a casino, with ever major casino in the world evaluated by name • How to pick a dealer • How to keep from being cheated • How to play the cards, using the Basic Strategy to your best advantage • How to win at home and at “Las Vegas nights” • How to keep from being banned once you are a winner

While most research has examined the legal, economic and psychological sides of gambling, this innovative collection offers a wide range of cultural perspectives on gambling organizations. Using both historical and present-day case studies from throughout the world, the authors seriously consider the rituals, symbols, the meanings, values, legitimations, relations (formal as well as informal), and the spaces and artifacts involved in the (re)production of gambling organizations. Contributors not only examine the global influence of commercial gambling, but also demonstrate how the local qualities of gambling organizations remain unique. This volume will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and all scholars of gambling.