The Odds Against Me: The Autobiography of John Scarne

If he's had a touch of larceny in him, he could have been the number one card sharp of ail time. Instead the author of these fabulous memoirs, born to a mother who considered gambling the devils tool put his extraordinary gifts to far different purposes. He has used his incredible gambling sense, his miraculously dexterous fingers (as a magician he vied with Houdini) his brilliant mathematical mind, and his fascination with carnival and gambling life, to become America's number one authority on gambling and odds. He is the greatest living practitioner and analyst of card and slight of hand ( his artistry impressed FDR as well as underworld overlords). He has been consultant to the top casinos in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Las Vegas. He was chosen by the US Army in World War II to show GI's how not to be fleeced in crooked games. He was a front page witness in 1961 before the Senate's investigation of gambling and crime. There is nothing about the international gambling world - its personalities, stories, methods - that he doesn't know. And his own colorful and knowing personality makes his autobiography one of the most fascinating documents of our day. Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs, 537 pages.