The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told

The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told is an inspiring personal narrative about a filly named Winning Colors who broke through the male-dominated world of horseracing, and a trio of gamblers who embark on an unforgettable adventure as epic as the horse's historic victory. It's Seabiscuit meets Narcos, and the best true-life gambling story ever tol

Twenty-seven amusing and enlightening tales of those who beat the odds, and those who failed trying.

Steve Haskin takes readers behind the scenes to introduce them to the trainers, jockeys, and horses seeking the worlds most elusive sports prizethe Triple Crown. Haskins personal involvement, keen eye for a good story, and conversational writing style make readers feel like they are living the moment with him.

__________________ The bookies always win. But one man has been proving them wrong for four decades. In the summer of 1975 Barney Curley, a fearless and renowned gambler, masterminded one of the most spectacular gambles of all time with a racehorse called Yellow Sam. With a meticulous, entirely legal plan involving dozens of people, perfectly timed phone calls, sealed orders and months of preparation, Curley and Yellow Sam beat the bookmakers and cost them millions. They said that it could never happen again. But in May 2010, thirty-five years after his first coup, Curley staged the ultimate multi-million-pound-winning sequel. The Sure Thing tells the complete story of how he managed to organise the biggest gamble in racing history - and how he then followed up with yet another audacious scheme in January 2014.

In American Roulette, Richard Marcus tells his never-before-heard story, of ripping off casinos. The book follows Marcus, along with several of the world's great professional casino cheaters, as he travels from Las Vegas to London and Monte Carlo, pilfering large sums of money from casinos by performing sleight of hand magic tricks with gaming chips. As skilled cheaters, they back up their moves with psychological setups to convince pit bosses that they're watching legitimate high rollers getting lucky, while in fact they're being ripped off blind. With the exploding growth of casino gambling, heightened by Indian reservation and riverboat expansion, more and more elaborate casino cheaters are illegally assaulting the green-felt, getting rich off of novice casino personnel. Richard Marcus's insider story is a window into the hidden world of intriguing personalities and tense situations he encounters as a member of expert casino-cheating teams who use their wits to turn the odds upside down and "earn" millions. American Roulette is a fascinating story not only for those who occasionally casino-gamble, but for everyone with a little larceny in their heart.

Men, money, duelling and murder: welcome to the infamous Derby race of 1844 and the gambling mania that gripped early 19th century Britain. This is a tale of money, gambling and sporting obsession; of rogues and rascals, outrageous criminality, aristocratic complacency, and a gripping investigation to expose the most audacious sporting plot of the age. In the early 1840s, Britain was the gambling capital of Europe and the Epsom Derby was attracting countless spectators and many millions of pounds in wagers. It was a time of frenzied speculation, high stakes and low morals. But as the unprincipled Regency era gave way to the high-mindedness of the Victorian period, reformers decided it was time to challenge the murky world of illegal gambling and in 1844, launched the far-reaching Parliamentary Enquiry. When the Derby of the same year ended in chaos, with the two favourite horses doped, the Turf's most dedicated follower and greatest tyrant Lord George Bentinck, took it upon himself to uncover the truth of what happened that day, which led to one of the most sensational court cases of the 19th century. A compelling detective story peopled with low-life aristocrats and high-minded reformers, GENTLEMEN AND BLACKGUARDS paints a rich picture of early Victorian society, bringing to light an overlooked turning point in British history.

Imagine what it would be like to turn your back on the nine-to-five drudgery of normal working life and risk everything you've ever had on the fate of a horse race or the outcome of a ball game. In the gambling fraternity, Harry Findlay has earned legendary status. He has been skint dozens of times, won over £20 million and spent just as much. But he will not change. Fearless and formidable, bullish and bombastic, there is no one in the gambling game who can match Harry's style and seismic impact. When he first ran a betting slip through his fingers as a 16-year-old, Harry said he had been handed the keys to the Magic Kingdom. Gambling has taken him all around the globe, enjoying five-star travel and a gourmet indulgence at the world's biggest sporting events. In his much-awaited book, Harry recounts the mind-boggling tales behind the thousand and million pound multi-sport bets that will make ordinary punters shudder including the day he wagered £2.5 million on a rugby match. It is a remarkable life story of ups and downs. Aged 21 years old, he served nearly a year in some of Her Majesty's toughest jails. Who'd have thought he would go on to own Big Fella Thanks, winner of the Derby at Clonmel and the most famous dog to come out of Ireland and be part owner of the legendary racehorse Denman, who carried his colours to Gold Cup glory. Harry's subsequent controversial disqualification from racing destroyed him, despite the ruling being overturned on appeal. Most fascinating of all, Harry tells how he has survived and continues to work his magic in the gambling world, and still believes in his own special talent to read sports events and to continue to stay one step ahead of the internet companies that flood our minds with the temptation to risk so much. Harry Findlay: Gambling For Life reflects one man's extraordinary passion for gambling. How he cannot live without it. And how he knows that, even if he loses all of his money, he can never be a loser.

The New York Times bestseller! A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.