Review of Yes, You Can Win!
- Title:
- Yes, You Can Win!
- Author:
- Bob Stupak
- Publisher:
- Galaxy Publishing
- Date:
- 1992
- ISBN:
- -
- Pages:
- 149
- Price:
- Out of Print
February 21, 2002
Bob Stupak was the founder and owner of the Vegas World Casino in Las Vegas,
which is now the Stratosphere. A tireless promoter, Stupak was both one
of the of the most innovative and controversial casino entrepreneurs.
He's also known as a big gambler himself, being one of the "old school"
of casino owners who is both willing to fade very large action, occasionally
gambling his casino's livelihood against his opposition, and willing to
make large wagers himself. Despite his brash style, Stupak also understands
the fundamentals of gambling and mathematics. In Yes, You Can
Win! Stupak dispenses gambling advice focused on what works for
his personal style.
In his book, Stupak discusses the intrinsic mathematics of gambling at
a very introductory level. I
might quibble with the way he presents some concepts, but he gets the
math right. He also relates his preferred style of gambling: Start with
a moderate sized stake for the session, increase bet sizes when winning,
but don't double up, and decrease bet sizes when losing. Stupak
feels that this gives the gambler a reasonable chance at making a big
score without risking either an enormous session loss or on getting tapped
out on a single big bet. While he decries more familiar "system" betting,
like the D'Alembert or Martingale systems, the system he prefers using
confers no intrinsic advantage or disadvantage over any other style,
it's just a method that suits him. This is fine, but it's unfortunate
that it's presented as a superior system when it's not. At least he
does admit that no betting style, including his, can overcome the
house advantage.
He talks about the rules and procedures for three of the most popular
casino games: craps, blackjack, and roulette. These are all presented
at the beginning level, and his description of play is easy to follow.
His blackjack basic strategy table isn't perfect, but it's not completely
out of line, and the rest of the information he presents on these
games is accurate. Stupak also discusses slot machines. He mentions
calculating pay back based on the number of reels and the number of stops
on each reel. Even when the book was written, this information wasn't
correct for almost, if not all, slot machines in Nevada casinos. Instead
of the stops being chosen randomly with equal probability, they're
chosen electronically, and each stop on each wheel may have a different
probability of occurring.
Due to his direct style and relentless self-promotion people view
Stupak in a variety of ways, ranging from admiration to bemusement to
outright contempt. The title page touts Stupak as "The World's Foremost
Gambler". Whether this is true or not can be debated, but his
style is evident in this book. No place is this more apparent than in
the last chapter, where Stupak is interviewed by some nameless individual,
and in the first chapter, where the author describes how he came up with
the idea for the Stratosphere tower.
I found this out of print book to be amusing. I think the gambling advice
is better presented in a few other books, but his approach isn't bad,
especially considering how many awful books there are on the market.
This isn't a book that most people should relentlessly seek out, but
for die-hard gambling readers who find Stupak's style and antics at
least amusing, it's worth acquiring on the cheap if one stumbles across
it.
Capsule:
Love or hate him, at least Bob Stupak is an interesting and genuine
character. In "Yes, You Can Win!", Stupak provides information on how
to play the three most well-known casino table games and dispenses his advice
on how he likes to bet. While his opinions on money management
aren't as definitive as he makes them sound, his advice certainly isn't
horrible, at least compared to other books on the market. Most people
shouldn't feel the need to seek out this mostly forgotten out-of-print
work, but the right reader will find the book entertaining.
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