| The Odds: One Season, Three Gamblers And The Death Of Their Las Vegas |  | Author: Chad Millman
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 64637
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 280
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
ASIN: B001GXQNSS
Publication Date: March 21, 2001
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
For sports gamblers in Las Vegas, nobody cares who wins; it's by how much that matters. In The Odds, Chad Millman follows three professional gamblers through a year of college basketball, where meticulous research, betting discipline, and instinct clash with addiction, and no one relaxes until they've lost it all. The three colorful gamblers Millman expertly portrays are a high-rolling career "wiseguy," a slacker wannabe, and a bookmaker who sets the lines on games (for example, Iowa over Indiana by 4-1/2 points, meaning if you bet on Iowa, you win only if Iowa wins by five points or more). The idea behind the betting line is to lure bets (hopefully, losing ones) and make a profit for his casino from the action, but more importantly to stay ahead of those who pounce on a weak line like hungry wolves. Millman provides the answer to what makes these wiseguys tick: "While the casual bettor weighs common sense and financial realities with every bet, the wiseguy pushes those aside... [his] battle isn't with what makes sense; his battle is with anyone who gets in the way of making his bet a euphoric experience." Along with lurid details of what these gamblers do to feed their frenzy, Millman enriches us on gambling's history and sobering statistics, on Vegas's decline and the rise of offshore casinos, and on the effects of media coverage and politics on sports and gambling. While you won't learn how to get rich off the next office pool, you will get an inside look at those who make or lose money on some kid's buzzer-beater or a garbage-time lay-up. --Michael Ferch
Product Description
"One wild read" (Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated) about a unique city trying to find itself--and about three gamblers who win, lose, and risk everything during the college basketball season. One gambler is a manic former cokehead with an Ivy League degree. The second is a college dropout trying to make a living at the only thing he enjoyed at school--gambling. The third, one of Vegas's most respected bookmakers, is perilously close to burning out. The Odds follows the lives of these three professional gamblers through a college basketball season in a one-of-a-kind city struggling to reconcile its lawless past with its family-friendly makeover. With a wiseguy attitude and a faultless eye and ear for the sights and sounds of Vegas and its denizens, Chad Millman has created a portrait that the Wall Street Journal called "fascinating... often screamingly funny." The Las Vegas Review-Journal had just one word for the book: "Superb."
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
 Profiles of people for a season January 23, 2010
Clank (Worcester, MA)
This book is about a few gamblers and their lives during a college basketball season. It does also cover some football including the super bowel. The people working at the sports book are also profiled. The gamblers profiled are full time gamblers at different stages of their life. This book doesn't glamorize the gambler, instead they are seen as leading a rough life.
The book takes place when the Rams and Titan's played in the super bowel.
You'll learn how the lines are produce.
I did like that it had brief snippets on gambling laws.
 If you are in the game March 31, 2009
YourGovernment (Pittsburgh, Pa)
Then read this book. Quite the enjoyable read.
It became difficult to put this book down. I found humor dripping off the pages. While not being the main trust of the book, Millman does a good job of hinting at just how much gambling saturates American life, such as stories of local bookies and rampant wagering as a part of campus life. Does an NFL broadcast ever go by without announcers making a reference to wagering? Pick up just about any newspaper across this fair land and you find "Odds" listed in the sports section. Yet all the while gambling remains illegal, with a wink and a nod.
As a disclaimer, allow me to say I don't wager or pay attention to any gambling activity whatsoever. If I engaged in anything it would be strictly entertainment purposes only.
 If you have ever dreamed of being a proffesinoal gambler... February 23, 2009
Evan Schlosberg (McMinnville, OR, Linfield College)
This book was packed with great Las Vegas history as a well as a magnificent account of the professional sports bettor's life style. What I liked best about this book is that it gave me the chance to fantasize about moving to Vegas and being a professional gambler with out actually having to do it.
 worse than stupid September 11, 2007
TheLyingThief (seattle, Wa United States)
1 out of 18 found this review helpful
betting football is neither less nor more "euphoric" than winning at chess, ping-pong, or the stock market: euphoria is absolutely tangential to bringing home the bacon.
as a winning NFL and NCAA football bettor, i can say emphatically, books which emphasize the "inevitability" of losing at the game only promote the mentality of losing to an elevation akin to destiny, or worse, fate.
the fault is not in our stars but ourselves, that we lose thus or thus.
i have known other winning players; i AM a winning player; you, however, are probably not a winner, and the author of this book is CERTAINLY NOT a winning player.
tlt.
Not much meat July 10, 2007
gregory dwyer (houston, tx)
I love to read books about gambling and gamblers. A well written book allows me to really get into the heads of the "characters" and somewhat vicariously experience their highs and lows. This book was a disappointment in that regard.
Millman spent far too much time on the "basics" of gambling and gambling history. This may have been informative to the uninitiated, and perhaps he was hoping for broad-based readership and a best seller, but if you're looking to read the book in 2007 chances are you're already familiar with the basics of sports betting.
Millman focuses on two gamblers and the bookmaker for the Stardust casino. We never really get to "know" these three. We get a glimpse into the mind of Allen Boston, a "professional" gambler, but know virtually nothing about the other two. There is not enough detail of the decision-making process that the gamblers go through in deciding on their bets.
After reading Michael Konik's latest book which really DID give me a good view of gamblers and the gambling world, I was disappointed in this one.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. Disclaimer: The products referenced on this site are manufactured and sold by other parties and sold through Amazon.com We make no representations regarding either the products or any information vendors offer about their products. Any questions, complaints, or claims regarding the products must be directed to the appropriate manufacturer or vendor, or to Amazon.com. | |
