American Roulette: How I Turned the Odds Upside Down---My Wild Twenty-Five-Year Ride Ripping Off the World's Casinos (Thomas Dunne Books)

By Richard Marcus

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312291396
• ISBN13: 9780312291396
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Cool Under Pressure? These Guys Are Icebergs!

As a big fan of caper movies and con stories (Ocean's 11, The Thomas Crown Affair, Catch Me if You Can), I can enthusiastically recommend American Roulette. Richard Marcus (most likely not his real name, in fact, the name is the same as that of the actor in a TV series called The Pretender) tells of his successful career as a casino cheat. He started as a garden-variety gambler, lost all his money, found himself homeless in Las Vegas, and became a blackjack dealer. Marcus was recruited by a well-to-do casino rip-off gang and rose to the top over the years. He tells great stories about which casinos the gang hit, how they engineered the con, the trouble they ran into, and how they were nearly caught several times. The gang even made their way to casinos in Europe and Australia, although their base was in Las Vegas. The opening of casinos in Atlantic City and across the U.S. made for some easy pickings as well. American Roulette is not an instructional manual on how to scam the casinos. In fact, as Marcus points out, even if you were to learn the mechanics and technicalities of the scam, there is something more basic to the success of the con game and that is being cool under pressure. These characters are glaciers. American Roulette is a terrific read, and would make a fantastic movie.

Better than Mezrich or Abagnale

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.

Gripping and fun

This hugely entertaining book takes the reader through casinos across the world with a group of nervy and sophisticated roulette cheats. The brisk narrative follows the career of Richard Marcus from his adolescent wanderings, through his tutelage by an older casino cheat, and into his formation and leadership of an expert roulette crew. Close calls are many, mistakes are costly and rewards are great. I have no opinion on the veracity of Mr. Marcus's story, but I know an entertaining book when I read one. This is an exhilarating read!

Vicarious Thrills

After seeing the author featured on Entertainment Tonight, and reading Howard Schwartz's review on CasinoCityTimes.com, I picked up this fascinating memoir. I found it pleasingly reminiscent of Catch Me If You Can, another highly recommended title in which a con man through ingenuity and boldness exploits various cracks in a system for profit and excitement. While Richard Marcus's "moves" are certainly clever, especially in the latter stages when he turns surveillance cameras to his advantage (a method briefly showcased on Entertainment Tonight), that they require chutzpa more than MIT intellect makes this adventure comprehensible and plausible vicarious fodder for a non math genius. In the end, what really made this book a worthy read are the adventure of close calls with casino personnel, and the cheaters' need to continuously update and modify their cheating methods and locales. For those like me who have no desire to personally experience being chased down the Vegas Strip or jump off a riverboat casino, in order to elude casino "steam" yet still hold a fleeting desire for a glimpse of such adventure, I recommend Richard Marcus's story.

The BEST Casino Cheating Book Ever!

I thought that I knew everything about casino cheating. Boy was I wrong.This book really informed and enlightened me. It's nice to see the casinos lose for a while. Next time I go to Las Vegas I'm not going to forget to pack this must read.