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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.
- Sales Rank: #1119340 in Books
- Published on: 2004-11-08
- Released on: 2004-10-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .79" w x 6.00" l, 1.15 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 384 pages
- ISBN13: 9780312336011
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
From Publishers Weekly
In the 1970s, a young Marcus was introduced to the art of "pastposting," a form of casino cheating that involves switching bets at roulette, craps or blackjack after the outcome has been determined. For the next 25 years, he and his team-a "mechanic," a "claimer" and a "frontman" (who cases the place for security)-traveled the casino world, cheating their way to millions in profits. Considering that this account is often a rodomontade to Marcus's felony theft, it is entertaining- assuming, that is, that readers are comfortable with his depiction of casino cheating as a war between the amoral gambling industry and the noble albeit equally amoral author and his team. Even allowing for hyperbole and dramatic license, the serendipitous escapes, harrowing backroom interrogations and a Billy the Kid/Pat Garrett-like rivalry with a relentless security chief feel like plot devices. Marcus (never caught and now retired) is likable and creates suspense as he takes on casino after casino. His habit of vilifying casino personnel who challenge him (suspicious women dealers are "bitchy," and male dealers who thwart him are "paranoid") is amusing if unintentionally so. Readers who find vicarious thrills sharing the rush of risking thousands of dollars against years in a Nevada prison will appreciate this title.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Today you can hardly turn on television without seeing a behind-the-scenes show on exposing gambling cheats. Here you can learn it from a real pro. Marcus was a career cheater for 20 years. His most creative invention, dubbed the Savannah (named after a stripper), involves hiding a large-denomination chip under a five-dollar chip on a roulette layout and then removing (or raking) the big chip just when you know your number didn't win. Sounds easy enough, but what about the ever-present "eye in the sky" or even the dealer? No problem, says Marcus; you just act dumb and pretend you didn't know the ball had fallen. And believe it or not, he prospered in the world's greatest casinos by employing this simple system. Although getting into the cheaters' heads is extremely entertaining, it is certainly a guilty pleasure, for it's hard to cheer for a common thief, even if he is an underdog. A fun read, but don't try these tricks on your next trip to Las Vegas. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“In this memoir, a grafter with a predator's understanding of human frailty recounts his true adventures swindling casinos the world over. Marcus's prose is so detail-rich it's as if you're fattening your pockets and running from the "steam" [i.e., angry casino muscle] right alongside him.” ―Details magazine
“American Roulette provides the titillating thrill of being welcomed inside a forbidden world. As fun as it is revealing.” ―Michael Konik, author of Telling Lies and Getting Paid and The Man with the $100,000 Breasts and other Gambling Stories
“Richard Marcus is that rarest of tour guides: a real insider who offers an unvarnished account of how he cheated casinos out of tidy little piles of money....a rare tell-all.” ―Timothy L. O'Brien, author of Bad Bet: The Inside Story of the Glamour, Glitz, and Danger of America's Gambling Industry
“So much fun to read that this book deserves to be in two sections of every bookstore - Crime and Magic. One of the most original books on gambling and Las Vegas that I've ever read.” ―Bert Randolph Sugar, author of The Caesars Palace Sports Book of Betting
Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
entertaining autobiography of a casino cheater
By James J. Lippard
This book tells the author's story of how he lost everything he had gambling, took a crappy job as shill--promoted to baccarat dealer--at the Four Queens in Las Vegas, and then had the opportunity to join a group of gambling cheaters and thieves. The cheating moves described in the book are mostly "pastposting"--placing high bets after the outcome is known by swapping in a new stack of chips for the ones previously bet. The trick is that high-value chips are concealed underneath low-value chips, and the cheater often has to issue a "claim" by pointing out to the dealer that he's been underpaid for the bet. The book begins and ends with a move he calls the "Savannah" which is an opposite maneuver--a high bet is placed, with the high-value chips concealed by lower-value chips, and if the bet loses, the high-value chips are pulled off. With that move, the winning bets are legitimate and surveillance tapes show that the high-value chips were there all along.
The group also would occasionally make money with other scams, like "railing"--stealing directly out of the chip racks of their fellow players. They also narrowly avoid getting involved in a card-marking scheme, violating their own rules of not using any specialized equipment that could be incriminating.
The book is most interesting for the characters involved and how they dealt with "steam" from the casinos when they caught on to what was happening.
The author appears to have no guilt or remorse for his actions on the grounds that casinos are regularly "stealing" from people every day (though that certainly doesn't justify the thefts directly from other gamblers, and ignores that gamblers are willing participants who know the odds are stacked against them).
I read _Bringing Down the House_ about the MIT Blackjack Team about a year and a half ago, and the comparison between the teams is interesting--the MIT team's methodology was far more sophisticated (and wasn't technically cheating), but both had to use similar psychological techniques.
It's surprising that the casinos didn't come up with better countermeasures quickly (a rule that there are no payouts for high-value chips not announced in advance, for example), but I find Marcus' overall tale quite plausible, in part because of the factors he points out in the last few pages of the book--"practically all casino jobs are monotonous" (p. 369). The boredom results in lack of attention and the jobs' high turnover results in inexperienced people up against very experienced cheaters.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating and Compelling Reading --- A Great Book!
By Bookreporter
First of all, I must confess that I know next to nothing about gambling. I don't know the rules of any card games, and the intricacies of games such as roulette and keno are lost upon me. My experience in casinos is limited to dropping a quarter into a slot machine and pulling a lever, and that is just for grins and giggles. Accordingly, AMERICAN ROULETTE qualifies for me as a great book, given that it deals with a topic that I know very little about and makes it the subject of fascinating and compelling reading.
AMERICAN ROULETTE is about gambling, but it is more about cheating at gambling, or more specifically, systematically cheating at casino gambling. Author Richard Marcus made a very nice living for decades by cheating casinos. He is unapologetic about it; in fact, he is quite proud of the methods he used. His justification appears to be that casinos cheat their customers, so he is merely getting his own back. This is arguably a self-serving view. Anyone entering a casino has at least a rudimentary idea of whose side the laws of chance reside; one either chooses to gamble or not. Philosophical considerations aside, however, AMERICAN ROULETTE remains a fascinating study in the hows and wherefores of casino cheating, as well as casino security. Casinos, understandably, are not in the business of losing money. While the individual scores that cheaters like Marcus might inflict may individually be relatively small, taken in the aggregate they could constitute death by a thousand cuts. Casinos accordingly are quite interested in stanching the flow and are constantly playing Tom to Marcus's larcenous Jerry.
Marcus describes in AMERICAN ROULETTE how he first became involved in casino cheating. He actually started off as a casino dealer. One night he received an interesting proposition from a man named Joe Classon. Classon offered Marcus a spot on his "team." The entire purpose of Classon's team was to cheat casinos out of money. It quickly becomes evident from reading AMERICAN ROULETTE that great casino heists are not carried out individually. A well-disciplined, well-oiled team is an absolute must for any chance of success. Classon, from this account, had one of the best. He became teacher, leader, mentor and father figure to Marcus, instructing him in the methods of casino cheating and encouraging him to devise methods of his own. Marcus for the most part does an incredible job of explaining the methodology of both the games and the methods of cheating that he utilized to beat the casinos. Notwithstanding my unfamiliarity with such games as blackjack and roulette, there was only a time or two during AMERICAN ROULETTE when I felt lost at sea.
After Classon retired, however, Marcus began leading his own team and utilized his potential as a casino thief to the fullest. Marcus is quite straightforward in explaining his techniques. However, though he does so in a step-by-step-manner, this is not a "how-to" book. If anything, one who would seek to follow in Marcus's footsteps would be dissuaded by AMERICAN ROULETTE. It is obvious from reading the book that a casino thief requires a combination of skills --- coordination, nerve, sleight of hand and patience --- that is rarely found in combination in one individual. Additionally, a successful casino thief needs at least one assistant that can be totally trusted. And then, of course, there are the casinos, which understandably frown on cheating. While the days of cheaters being dry-gulched are reportedly over (and I'm not entirely convinced of that) the legal penalties are quite severe. Penalties can only be imposed, however, if one is caught; and even then, as Marcus demonstrates in AMERICAN ROULETTE, they can be avoided.
Marcus waited until retirement to write his "tell-all" book, which serves as an interesting counterpoint to the investigative television shows one stumbles across randomly on cable television that concern casino security. While technological advances have made things more difficult for the Richard Marcuses of the gambling world, they have not made it impossible. And while Marcus is hardly a role model, his account is an interesting and often suspenseful glimpse into a world of which relatively few are aware. Recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Better than Mezrich or Abagnale
By Reality Reader
American Roulette is a fascinating read. As a fan of true crime/adventure stories like Ben Mezrich's recent bestseller Bringing Down The House and Frank Abagnale's Catch Me If You Can, I was eager to pick up American Roulette as soon as I heard about it.
The true story of Richard Marcus' 25 year career as a casino cheater, American Roulette presents itself in a straightforward manner, similar to Frank Abagnale or Nicholas Pileggi, rather than Mezrich (a former novelsit, who, although entertaining, seems to take more liberty with the constrictions of truth).
American Roulette's emphasis on believability, over stylized drama, pays off beautifully. And why should he over stylize anything, when his adventures feature the allure of exotic locales, beautiful women, an investigator obsessed with busting him, and almost constant tension.
A group of colorful, carefree and quite likeable outlaws band together travelling the globe successfully cheating the world's casinos. Several close calls remind us of the motivation for Marcus' close knit teams to invent new cheating "moves" in a constant effort to stay one step ahead of the gaming security systems.
Perhaps the author's most impressive accomplishment besides never having been arrested and prosecuted for his deeds is that the detailed workings of the actual cheating "moves" he successfully employed are made crystal clear to the reader, even those unfamiliar with casino gambling.
A highly recommended glimpse into an unseen world.
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