Best / Worst Craps or Gambling Books

Based on a roundtable article by the same name, click here to read the article

Please remember!  These are archives!  The Dice Setter message board was shut down. What is published here are just a few of the threads documenting the early days of dice setting strategies and opinions written by the pioneers of dice influencing.

NofieldFive

I enjoyed the roundtable on these books. I have never read John Patrick's books but I see now that I am going to get them. I have read all of Scoblete's craps books and liked those also. But I have to agree with Mad Professor about Lyle Stuart's "Casino Gambling for the Winner" as being the best mindset book there is. I still have my copy from 1984. The pages are yellow, and I am afraid the thing is going fall apart, but I still pull it out and read it every couple of years. He lists the "Nine Commandments of Winning Casino Gambling" and truer words concerning the mental battle of gambling have never been written. I find that I read it after a bad losing session and I say to myself, "Why the Hell didn't you do what he recommends?" My answer....Stupidity. It is good to read on the plane to Vegas and I find that even after 17 years it is still enjoyable to read.

Heavy

The 3.5 hour drive back to my home from the boats is one of the longest in the world after a "stupid attack." My biggest problems: (1) putting too much faith in other shooters - I often get whacked waiting for the dice to come back around. (2) breaking discipline and exceeding a loss limit - it's that old "the trend is due to change" thing. (3) hanging around for one session too many - falsely believing that a hot streak will continue.

Advice to self and others: Stick with a hit, regress, hit and down strategy on shooters you are unfamiliar with. Etch those loss limits in stone and stick with them. Color up immediately after a hot shoot and leave the casino.

Mickey D.

Heavy: I knew the feeling. I live 25 minutes away from Mohegan Sun., and it feels like 3.5 hours when do the same thing. I dd some reflecting and came up with this:

How losing can be winning!!

I keep a running tab of the dollar amount of my wins and loses, so I always know exactly how I stand. Well a little less than a month ago after a stupid outing where I went way past my loss limit, I found that I was up a lowly $80 after 15 sessions stretching back over a couple of months. That in itself isn't the bad news. What really stunk is when I added up the amount of money that I lost in excess of my usual loss limit. It was, at least for me, a staggering amount: $930! Ouch!! I very abruptly kicked myself in the pants. For me $930 represents three fully funded sessions as I buy in for $300 per session. If I didn't have another dime to spend on craps, I'd be done. Zip, Nada, El broko!! There's no shooting craps with an $80 bankroll!! That's when I realized that losing (only up to your loss limit) is actually like paying yourself!! Each time you stop feeding the kitty with excess loss money you're actually extending your playing time. If I never won another dollar, I would have had the funds for those three extra sessions instead a pocket full of bus fare!

So each time you hit the loss limit and run, your doing yourself a world of good. In fact you ought to buy yourself a cigar or your favorite drink and celebrate being so smart.

Heavy

I have a MS Excel spreadsheet I've been keeping for about seven years now. I start over each January with a fresh sheet. I track session date, casino, cash in, cash out, cash won/lost, comps received, cash value of comps, and total win/loss including comp value. Over 7 years my worst was a string of thirteen (the irony of that is not lost on me) losing sessions where I hit a $350 loss limit each session. Yeah - the math on that is real ugly. Then the streak broke and I won most of it back in one weekend - over half of the loss recouped in one session. That year ended up being one of my best - my craps income averaging a tad over eight hundred a month. But you are correct - you absolutely, positively MUST keep records and keep them straight. And if you start lying to yourself about your losses it's time to pick up the phone and dial that problem gambler hotline number you see posted around the casinos.

Mickey D.

I ditto Nofield's comments on Stuart's book. In fact, I bought the book at about the same time in preparation to try shooting craps at the newly opened Foxwoods casino. My book is in the same condition and equally treasured.

Don Guangoche

Roadrunner, your mentioning of the Do's and Don'ts, reminded me of the Professor's Playbook of Playing4keeps.com. The information contained here works for a nickel bettor, or you high rollers. I especially like the way the pass line strategy kicks-ass on a good shooter and all you have to do is follow his easy to remember bet progression. My bias for the worst? Too many of the carps books pack complicated ways of play, for that "what if", specific conditions. They just don't make sense to me. It took me only a few winning sessions to believe in the Do's and Don'ts. And yes, the don't pass and don't come betting plays are very smart too. A complete package. (self published)

Roadrunner

Best dice book I have run across is "Dice Doctor" by Sam Grafstein. This book gives very good money management techniques, strategy plays for do's and don't's and has a smattering of stories. I use several techniques he purports in the book for my play.

Worst is something that just came out. "50 Years At The Craps Table"  by Malcolm Jay.  This guys claim to fame is "Bet the pass line and take full odds and if it is really going well make a couple of come bets with full odds".  I thought I saw several inaccurate statements but was positive about only one.  Don't waste the $12 on this one.

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