Gambling History

Uncover the thrilling history and psychology of risk, exploring why humanity constantly wagers its future on pure chance. Whether you are navigating a daily commute or seeking a captivating intellectual deep-dive, this fast-paced narrative transports you from ancient rituals of divination to the...

A Sweeping History of the Great State of Nevada From ancient Indigenous peoples to the Comstock Lode, from mob-run casinos to Tesla's Gigafactory, Nevada's history reads like an improbable fever dream. This is the story of America's most unlikely state—a place that shouldn't exist but refuses to disappear. Built on silver strikes and gambling, quickie divorces and atomic tests, Nevada has reinvented itself more times than any other state, turning vices into virtues and making industries from what others banned. The Silver State traces Nevada's journey from desert wilderness to swing-state...

Roll the Bones tells the story of gambling: where it came from, how it has changed, and where it is now. This is the new Casino Edition, which updates and expands the global history of gambling to include a greater focus on casinos, from their development in European spas to their growth in Reno and Las Vegas. New material chronicles in greater depth the development of casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and their spread throughout the United States.

Tampa Vice is the definitive history of how one American port city became a recurring laboratory for organized crime, corruption, and adaptive vice. From the bolita numbers rackets of Ybor City to the Havana casino empire of the Trafficante family, from the cocaine cartels of the 1980s to the pill mill explosion and the rise of cybercrime, this revised and expanded second edition traces more than 140 years of criminal enterprise in Tampa, Florida. In its early decades, figures like Charlie Wall transformed an immigrant gambling game into a political machine that controlled entire ...

Every sport has its unique, rich, and captivating history. But they also have a dark side. One that they don’t want you to know about. For every story of a local hero becoming an international sporting star, there is also a story of corruption, shame, and suspicion. But where can you hear about these incredible and captivating stories? Right here. Crossing the Line will tell you all about some of the biggest sporting scandals, from match-fixing to cheating, and everything in between. This book will tell of famous stories of cheating in sports, the motivations behind them, and the ...

The pro football season of 1963 was dominated by the unexpected. In April, months prior to the beginning of play, it was revealed that two All-Star players, Paul Hornung and Alex Karras, were gambling on the sport and would be suspended from play for at least a year. Even worse, in May, one of the league’s bigger-than-life personalities, Big Daddy Lipscomb, was found dead, with police saying he perished from a heroin overdose, something those who knew him best still dispute.

Decode the behavioral psychology of risk to understand the intoxicating rush and devastating fall of high-stakes betting. From ancient dice games to frictionless mobile apps, this immersive social history reveals the hidden mechanics of probability that dictate who wins and who loses everything...

Aubrey Clayton traces the history of how statistics went astray, beginning with the groundbreaking work of the 17th-century mathematician Jacob Bernoulli and winding through gambling, astronomy, and genetics. Clayton recounts the feuds among rival schools of statistics, exploring the surprisingly human problems that gave rise to the discipline and the all-too-human shortcomings that derailed it.

Over 70 Vintage Photos of Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe in this Edition! Before "Bugsy" Siegel" opened the Flamingo casino and created the Las Vegas Strip, the Mob was hard at work stealing Downtown casinos like the Las Vegas Club and the El Cortez from their original owners. Reno casino owners resorted to arson and murder to keep their money flowing, and they had Lake Tahoe casinos in their pocket too! Nevada's Golden Age of Gambling is a photo-rich history of the casinos from 1931 to 1981. All about the building of empires from Reno and Lake Tahoe to Las Vegas and a dozen other Nevada ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The greatest and most controversial sports gambler ever” (ESPN) Billy Walters shares his “rollicking and edgy life story” (The Wall Street Journal)—revealing the secrets to his fiercely protected betting system and breaking his silence about Phil Mickelson...

A cup rattles, three small cubes of bone or ivory spill across a wooden board, and for one held breath the whole room leans in. A soldier's monthly pay, a merchant's profit, and occasionally a man's own freedom was riding on which faces land upward. That scene played out countless times a day throughout the ancient world, in army camps on the frozen Rhine, in the back rooms of Pompeian wine shops, in the tiled gaming chambers of senatorial villas, and in the palace itself, where more than one emperor kept a set close at hand.

Named one of the most anticipated nonfiction books of 2026 by The New York Times Book Review The definitive, colorful history of American sports betting that challenges the dialogue around one of our country’s fastest growing (and most controversial) industries. Taking listeners on a...

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his...

Chris Hedges’s profound and provocative examination of America in crisis is “an exceedingly…provocative book, certain to arouse controversy, but offering a point of view that needs to be heard” (Booklist), about how bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in a culture of sadism and...

Trent came to Idaho seeking solitude. He built a cabin, broke a few wild horses, and quietly put his past behind him. Then King Bill Hale began laying claim to all the land around Cedar Bluff. When Hale’s son kills one of Trent’s neighbors, Trent quickly steps forward to lead the fight...

Gambling is a dangerous, addictive, and expensive hobby, in fact it's the fastest growing addiction on the planet. Smart phone technology has sparked a global gambling epidemic, the temptation to gamble is now literally in the palm of our hands. Mind blowing, record breaking profits are being recorded by online casinos and sports betting companies. As a result, hard-working everyday people are gambling money they simply cannot afford to lose. I was one of the many who suffered extreme gambling addiction.

In the tenth audiobook in the multimillion-selling Killing series, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take on their most controversial subject yet: The Mob. Killing the Mob is the tenth audiobook in Bill O'Reilly's #1 New York Times bestselling series of popular narrative histories, with sales of...

My name is Drood, Eddie Drood, but I should probably change that. My family has cast me out, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. Unfortunately, Eddie's had a falling out with his nearest and dearest - some of whom were trying to kill him, so he has a valid excuse. Now, he and his true love...

What really happens behind the velvet ropes of Las Vegas’ high-limit rooms? For 35 years, Randy Rutecki lived the life most people only imagine — dealing high-stakes roulette in the city that never sleeps. From the Golden Nugget to the Mirage, Bellagio, and Wynn, Randy had a front-row seat to the rise of the mega-resorts and the gamblers who risked fortunes overnight. In Sleepless in Sin City: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, he pulls back the curtain on a world of: - Whales and high rollers dropping millions in a single session. - Scams, cheats, and hustlers who thought they could ...

Gambling is something that many of us participate in, and this can include a trip to a casino or perhaps a home game of poker. But it turns out gambling, or aspects of gambling, will appear in many places, and this, of course, includes history, and that s what this book is about. First, we ll define exactly what gambling is, explain why both luck and skill (or lack of skill) are important, and also define something called non-self-weighting strategies which just happens to be the right way to gamble. Then we ll venture into the world of history looking for those situations where great ...