2 comments about The Las Vegas Advisor Guide to Slot Clubs.

1. This is the 1995 edition which, while useful in showing how Slot Clubs work, is hopelessly outdated in its particulars. I had understood that there would be a 1998 edition which would have been more useful. None of the newer casinos is listed here because of the book's age. I also know for fact that the club at MGM Grand has changed its modus operandi since this book was written. If you want an overview of how slot clubs work, this book could be for you. I cannot recommend it for current information.



2. I am heading for Las Vegas again very soon and am going through this book very carefully to decide where I will do most of my playing. This is the 3rd time I am using this book as a reference to guide me to the best places to play slots and video poker. I had hoped a newer edition would be out by now, hence the 4 rating rather than a 5, but don't let that stop you from buying this book. The am't of info
   contained in this book will guide the new and the veteran
   Las Vegas gambler alike. I won't leave home without it!

3 comments about Beginners Best Shot at Video Poker.

1. This great paperback gives you a thorough study of the 'ins and outs' of Video Poker. If you play Video Poker this book is a must.



2. Having played the game and read several books on the subject, this is the best. The author shows the best play for all situations in a way that is easy to remember. bd



3. If you are just learning video poker including the basics this might make a nice supplement but I found it to be oversimplified and in desperate need of supplemental reading.

No comments about How to play backgammon.

2 comments about The Ten Best Casino Bets.

1. Having read a lot of gambling books, it is good to see one that is statistically significant as to various issues. A handy little reference that would help increase your odds in the casino



2. This book helped me incredibly understand the odds and help beat the casino at their games. I recommend it.

No comments about How to Play Poker.

4 comments about Wiley's Refrain.

1. In Portland, Oregon, poker professional Wiley learns from Danny Alexander that he got promising young jazz musician Ronnie a part-time gig. Afterward Wiley laments to his pal, Leon (friends since their days of being abused in elementary school by their teacher Mrs. Boomer) that he prays that Danny has his head on straight or the talented Ronnie might suffer. The gambler will soon realize how accurate his comment proves to be when someone murders Ronnie.
   
   Wiley takes the homicide personally as he and his family knew the victim. With the help of Leon, they begin walking the mean streets of Portland, but the clues take a spin to Hawaii. Wiley who has never set foot on the home of his family tree heads to the Aloha State where he expects to pound the crap out of Danny, who he blames and the proof seems to affirm his involvement. However, Wiley finds that one red herring after another takes him down a different path.
   
   The third Wiley escapade is an exciting thriller that takes the hero/antihero (depending on whether you are on the receiving end of either his or Leon's fists) on an intriguing noir adventure. The flashbacks and side comments to his past enable the audience to see much more of Wiley's moral system that demands justice vigilante style immediately. Though the motive behind the need for vengeance that drives Wiley and Leon to seek the killer never seems fully developed fans will appreciate his latest adventure.
   
   Harriet Klausner



2. This is by far the best of the Wiley series. The author has hit his stride in this book, having a fine story, involving characters, and wonderful use of understated dialogue. Much like the Robert Parker "Spenser" books - but much more edgy and up to date.
   
   The story is one of greed, anger, sadness and longing. All wrapped around the blues scene and the Portland and Hawaii locales. Anyone who has been into music or Hawaii will love the imagery, even though it does show more of the underground marginally criminal sides of those worlds.
   
   Anyway, I highly recommend it for those who like Westlake, Vachss, Goren, Block and other such authors.



3. Very enjoyable crime novel. Waiwaiole's writing style can seem a little forced at times, but overall is engaging. I liked the Hawaiian touches.



4. First, some background before the review:
   
   Way back in the early-to-mid 1990's, a sleazy Portland nightclub owner and concert promoter was allegedly printing hundreds of extra counterfeited concert tickets, then selling them at the door before gigs and pocketing the extra cash. Late one night after a John Lee Hooker blues show, a young man who had just moved to town and taken a job at one of the nightclubs confronted the promoter about the scam. No one ever saw him again. The club owner claimed he was innocent of any wrong doing.
   
   A reporter for a weekly alternative newspaper got whiff of the story, and doggedly investigated the disappearance, interviewing hundreds of people and publishing literally dozens of articles over the course of the next few years; and with the aid of the missing boy's frantic parents, aided the authorities with solving - more or less - a seedy murder and the subsequent cover-up by the killer.
   
   The club owner, meanwhile, was having other problems, besides dealing with the investigation into the disappearance of his employee: he was in serious trouble with the IRS, and he eventually bolted the country, only to be arrested while promoting a concert in Vietnam. The Oregonian and the television news media began to tell portions of the story as well, now that it was national news. The club owner was later convicted of tax evasion, but the murder was ever proven - I don't think that the missing employee's body was never found.
   
   That's the gist of the story anyway, near as I can remember. The entire thing was like a plotline taken right out of a pulp-noir type thriller. Okay, enough with the background. Now, on to the review...
   
   For Wiley's Lament, the third installment in his neo-noir thriller series featuring a troubled, card-playing vigilante named Wiley and his childhood friend and former pimp, Leon, Portland author and former high school English teacher Lono Waiwaiole steals this set up almost word-for-word, changing a few details here and there along the way to suit his own story, which is told in retrospect, after Wiley heads to Hawaii chasing a killer.
   
   Here, the concert promoter/killer is a sex-and-gambling addict/sleazebag named Danny (also referred to as Dannyboy), and the murder victim is Ray, a sometime employee of Danny's, and the talented young bass-player for an up-and-coming Portland-based blues group managed by Leon.
   
   Ray's band gets a plum gig opening for B.B. King; then, the night before the yearly Portland Blues Festival, Danny bludgeons Ray to death with a microphone stand after failing to smooth talk Ray out of his suspicion that Danny sold hundreds of extra tickets to the show and stole a large portion of the receipts. Danny covers up the killing with the aid of his even sleazier right-hand-man and his gay chauffer.
   
   The next day, Ray fails to show for the band's scheduled gig at the blues festival. This being totally out of character for Ray, Leon and Wiley get a bad vibe and worriedly confront Danny, who was the last person to see Ray alive. Danny gives them a lame, phony story about Ray leaving town due to a family emergency, then compounds the lie by setting up a violent `diversion' - the rape of Wiley's estranged ex-wife Julie (and the mother of his dead daughter) - by a couple of hired thugs brought in from Washington State. Wiley and Leon immediately sense something fishy after speaking with the paranoid Danny, and then the book is off and running.
   
   As with his previous two novels, Waiwaiole splits the resulting narrative along parallel chapters, using the device to alternate between Wiley and Leon's search for the truth of Ray's disappearance and Wiley's eventual hunt for his killer, and Danny's deepening paranoia over the theft, the murder, and his pursuit.
   
   Waiwaiole's writing is still somewhat uneven - the clipped noir banter that marked the first two novels comes and goes here, and often sounds forced, distracting the reader from the story and the more interesting bits of Wiley's introspection; scenes and chapters are set up and then mysteriously abandoned - as when Ray's parents fly into town to help locate their missing son. Waiwaiole pads the pages informing us of his intimate, map-like knowledge of Portland and the surrounding environs, sounding like a dashboard GPS system while Wiley and Leon drive around, aimlessly hunting for clues. Frustratingly, instead of letting events unfold naturally, Waiwaiole has a tendency to get sloppy and use contrived situations to resolve Wiley's investigation. Wiley doesn't seem do much, really; he usually seems to end up being in the right (or wrong) place at the right time.
   
   The duo of Wiley and Leon are planted firmly in a grittier, Spenser and Hawk type mold; and on the plus side, in Wiley, Waiwaiole has created something original: a unique and complex character with a fertile and wholly developed background. This only being his third book, Waiwaiole seems to be finding his own voice as a writer, slowly but surely rounding into a talented author with a gift for finding interesting stories to tell. All my quibbles aside, this is a much more satisfying and fully realized novel than either of his previous books, and - despite my gripes - is well worth a look.

1 comments about The Newtonian Casino.

1. It's a revolutionary book in the sense that the way of thinking before they challenged the roulette was that to beat the roulette was impossible, even Einstein had that opinion. They demonstrated the opposite, it was and STILL IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE ROULETTE.
   
   José

No comments about The Original Thoroughbred Times Racing Almanac, 2005 Edition (Original Thoroughbred Times Racing Almanac).

1 comments about Economics of Gambling.

1. Given that the author is based in Britain, I thought that this book might deal with cricket, darts and other non-US friendly subjects. Geez though - I couldn't have been more wrong - there's loads of Vegas and the whole Nevada scene plus lots of really useful economic theory. A great buy.

No comments about Specifications for Speed in the Racehorse: The Airflow Factors.