Top 5 Best Gambling Books & Fictional Novels

By John Isaac,
Editor at online-gambling.com

John Isaac Editor at online-gambling.com

John Isaac is an editor with many years of experience in the gambling industry. He writes expert articles on card games like blackjack and poker. In addition, he is also well aware of the US gambling laws and the Indian and Dutch gambling markets. You can rely on verified information and insightful details.

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Last updated: December 25, 2019

For those of you who are willing to invest more time and effort in order to improve their skills and knowledge, we have a list of the best gambling related books. Of course, we split them into two major categories – learning books with gambling guides and hints, and fictional or biographic novels with background stories and more interesting scenarios. We intend to start with the top 5 learning gambling books because to understand the fictional novels it will be best for you to be well prepared from knowledge base point of view. The best is yet to come…

Casino Dice Game and A Book © World Wide Web

Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling by David G. Schwartz

This is maybe one of the best casino gambling book titles to start with because it gives you a wide vision over the history of gambling. The whole content is well structured and easy to read too, the origin of the gambling is overviewed in each continent together with its evolution and transformation through the ages. Of course, it all starts from the first casino in Venice, then it spreads around Europe and later on it covers Asia, United States of America and other later on developed gambling industries. Some of the comments online are saying that this is one of the most comprehensive and detailed history books of gambling. Also, it is highly recommended for newcomers because it explains the very basics of the gambling which will be a great help to every newbie in that field. The book offers an easy way to understand and build your gambling knowledge, but if you are looking for the best strategies of winning, this is not your book, but it is a great start.

Scarne’s New Complete Guide to Gambling by John Scarne

If you don’t know, John Scarne is one of the most famous American magicians particularly specialised with cards. Later on, he becomes an expert on cards and other casino games with monetised prizes. John is known with his card games manipulations and the many of his casino gambling books and guides. The “New Complete Guide to Gambling” is one of his best sellers. His style of writing is nice and easy to understand, with clear and useful examples. The book was published in 1961, but gamblers all around the globe still read it even nowadays. With the help of Mr Scarne, you will learn the secrets of gambling together with his golden tips. If you are looking for educational literature to improve your skills, this is the one for you. You will go through every aspect of gambling – games, rules and strategies. Mr Scarne will definitely help you analyse and comprehend the information.

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King by Michael Craig

If you want to learn from the best, we guess this is one of your best choices. The book is written by Michael Craig, but the story is based on Andrew`s Beal high-stakes poker games. Yes, it is dedicated to poker only, but you will find living examples and most importantly, the strategies of some of the best players in the world. To understand the whole conception of the book, you need to know only how to play poker, the rest will be explained to you with proper examples from Andrew Beal`s experience.

The main scene of the book is the game between Andrew Beal, Howard Lederer and Ted Forrest. The professor is the mathematician Howard Lederer, the banker is Andrew Beal himself and the king is Ted Forrest. The book itself is focused over the high-stakes poker games of Andrew Beal, but it also includes information about other members of “The Corporation” like Jennifer Harman, Minh Ly, Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, David Grey, Gus Hansen and more. If you want to learn from the best, we highly recommend this book!

Beat the Dealer by Edward O. Thorp

This gambling book was written by the famous mathematician and inventor Edward O. Thorp, and it’s dedicated entirely on the game of Blackjack and the ways to beat and rob the house in a legal manner. People say that this book caused changes in the Las Vegas Casino rules many times. This book proofed that counting cards could be used to overturn the house edge. After all, Mr Thorps is also known as the father of card counting, and he is considered a pioneer in this field of expertise.

The book`s focus falls only over the game of Blackjack and the ways to beat the system but have in mind that this requires significant math skills. It is a great book because after all its not written by a gambler but by a math scientist. Therefore, the whole content is well-structured and shaped, it is not a “hard to read book”. Up to this date, people are still admiring the solutions that Mr Thorp provided back in 1962.

Gambling 102: The Best Strategies for all Casino Games by M. Shackleford

Michael Shackleford is another mad math professor AKA “The Wizard of Odds”. After he read John`s Scarne gambling guide, Mr Shackleford got interested in gambling mathematics. Meanwhile, he was a professor of actuarial science and mathematics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Later, in 1998 he started his new endeavour or the Wizard of Odds website, which was not that successful at that time and he sold it for around $2.3 million. Right after he moved in Las Vegas, in 2002 he published a paper related with the slot machines and their pay-out percentages, considered by many as “ground-breaking action” because such information was not publicly disposed at that time. Currently, he is still in that business field as an analyser of new games for game developing companies and casinos.

One of the most famous works of his is the novel Gambling 102, which was released in 2005. It appears to be one of the best strategy guides based on a combination of mathematical analysis, computer simulations and real casino plays. The casino gambling book itself is well consisted of properly synthesized information and without any side distractions. But if you are a novice, it won’t help you a lot, because the rules of the games are not explained, the author assumes that you know them. You need to know the basics otherwise you won’t be able to comprehend the content properly. We can guarantee you one thing! If you read it, you will improve your gambling skills significantly or at least that is the common opinion in the online reviews of the novel.