Review of K.I.S.S. Guide to Gambling

Title:

K.I.S.S. Guide to Gambling

Author:

John Marchel

Publisher:

DK Publishing, Inc.

Date:

2001

ISBN:

0-7894-8051-4

Pages:

352

Price:

$19.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

May 1, 2002

By a large margin, the most likely occurrence for a novice gambler in a casino is for that person to lose the gambling stake they brought with them. While the house will always enjoy an edge in every game over an unskilled player, at the very least this edge may likely be reduced by some simple education on the part of the bettor. Reading a book that teaches which games and bets are better deals for the player, as well as provides how the information on how the games are played would be of great benefit to many casino patrons. Part of DK Publishing's Keep It Simple Series, John Marchel's K.I.S.S. Guide to Gambling has been written to help a novice gambler get off on the right track.

The book has been reasonably divided into into five sections. The first contains mostly introductory information. The second section covers table games. The third part details machine games, including keno and bingo. The fourth section provides information on sports and race betting. Finally, the book concludes with some information about casinos in various locations. Like the For Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide series, the Keep It Simple Series is aimed for a very broad audience, including those with no gambling experience whatsoever. The book is filled with photographs and color diagrams explaining just about everything, and the writing is light and conversational. By no means is a college degree required to understand what the author is saying.

Most of the introductory information is pretty reasonable. However, as we get into the book there are some factual problems. When discussing the house edge of various games, Marchel makes the common mistake of confusing the house edge on each hand (or roll, or spin, or whatever) of each game with the house hold percentage. This is too bad because what he has to say about bankroll management, advice on when not to play, and his brief guide to tipping in a casino may be quite useful to his target audience.

The basic descriptions of games in the next two sections are pretty decent. It's my opinion, though, that while much of the information provided may assist those who have never played these games before, the descriptions are often not as thorough as I would prefer in a book aimed at rank beginners. Also, when it comes to betting advice, the author often advises players to look for winning streaks and winning tables, implying that going forward, a gambler is more likely to win there than in other games. Of course, this is not true as long as the games are fair, and Marchel does a disservice to his readers by perpetuating such myths.

In the section on sports and race betting, the information provided serves as a reasonable introduction to gambling on these events, but the basic advice given on how to select winners is too simplistic to be useful. A gambler betting on these events should know that all the information available in USA Today or The Racing Form will almost certainly be already factored in the event's odds. The information on casinos provides some interesting, if brief, flavor on gambling in various jurisdictions, including the Internet, although the information presented is too brief to be used as a meaningful travel guide.

Much of information in K.I.S.S. Guide to Gambling may be of value to true gambling novices. However, there are too many misconceptions presented in this book to allow me to recommend it. Sprinkled throughout the book are some interesting pieces of gambling trivia, but the book won't provide very much useful information for even the moderately experienced gambler.

Capsule:

While novice gamblers may find some of the information provided in K.I.S.S. Guide to Gambling to be useful, there are too many misconceptions in for me to recommend this book. Instead, books like The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gambling Like a Pro and Gambling for Dummies fill this niche better. There are a few bits of interesting trivia in these pages, but not enough to make it useful for even a moderately experienced gambler.