Is casino management an art? It is for the best casino managers! And Bill Zender knows the art of casino management. In addition to having worked in, managed, and owned casinos for decades, Zender has also been an enforcement agent for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, as well as spent time as an advantage player, exploiting the vulnerabilities of casinos from the civilian side of the tables. Today, he travels the globe consulting for the international casino industry. InCasino-ology, Zender argues against excessive card-counter and shuffle-tracker countermeasures in favor of hand production to increase profits, and concludes that rhythmic dice rollers aren't the threat they're made out to be. He details the dangers of customer-service breaches; ill-conceived non-negotiable-chip programs; and past-posting, marked-card, and false-shuffle scams. He addresses player tracking systems, 6-5 payouts for blackjacks, the subtleties of marketing to Asian customers, nuances of thederivative pit games, even the science of turning around a distressed casino. By challenging long-cherished conventions,Casino-ology provides contrarian and radical, but proven, solutions to common gaming issues, all in the service of refining the art of casino management.

This complete guide to casino operations covers facilities management, game protection, and table game management.

Protect Yourself from Casino Cheats! Bill Zender, a highly paid consultant to the gambling industry, is widely respected as an expert on game protection. Although cheating is rare in today's modern, highly-regulated casinos, the proliferation of casinos throughout the U.S. and around the world has created new opportunities for crooked dealers, and new dangers for honest players. Never before has any casino insider revealed the hidden tricks of the trade of the scam artists. Zender describes in vivid detail how slick blackjack dealers can rob you. None of this information has ever been made available to the general public in the past. The cheats aren't talking, and the casinos rarely disclose this sensitive information because they don't want to scare players away from their games. With blackjack now being dealt on riverboats, Indian reservations, and vacation resorts, as well as in high stakes private games all over the country, the time has come for players to know how to recognize cheaters and how to protect themselves.

Understand the Math Underlying Some of Your Favorite Gambling Games Basic Gambling Mathematics: The Numbers Behind the Neon explains the mathematics involved in analyzing games of chance, including casino games, horse racing, and lotteries. The book helps readers understand the mathematical reasons why some gambling games are better for the player than others. It is also suitable as a textbook for an introductory course on probability. Along with discussing the mathematics of well-known casino games, the author examines game variations that have been proposed or used in actual casinos. Numerous examples illustrate the mathematical ideas in a range of casino games while end-of-chapter exercises go beyond routine calculations to give readers hands-on experience with casino-related computations. The book begins with a brief historical introduction and mathematical preliminaries before developing the essential results and applications of elementary probability, including the important idea of mathematical expectation. The author then addresses probability questions arising from a variety of games, including roulette, craps, baccarat, blackjack, Caribbean stud poker, Royal Roulette, and sic bo. The final chapter explores the mathematics behind "get rich quick" schemes, such as the martingale and the Iron Cross, and shows how simple mathematics uncovers the flaws in these systems.

Dealing in a casino presents challenges and rewards not seen in many workplaces. With hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake every minute, table games pits are high-stress workplaces. Managing a workforce of dealers and attending to the needs of players brings stresses of its own. In 2015, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas's Center for Gaming Research received a grant from the UNLV University Libraries Advisory Board that enabled it to undertake an oral history project intended to capture the stories of table games managers, including both those currently working in the field and those who have retired. Drawn from these interviews, Tales from the Pit provides an overview of how the interviewees felt about a variety of topics, ranging from their experiences breaking in as new dealers to their transitions to management and the changes the industry has seen over their careers. The current and former managers speak candidly about the owners, bosses, dealers, and players who made each day challenging. This book illuminates the past several decades of casino history through the words of those who lived and made it.

The best-kept secret in the international pro gaming scene is finally out: Spanish 21, and its Australian counterpart, Pontoon, is even more beatable than Blackjack. "The Pro's Guide to Spanish 21" will teach you how to play optimally, apply proven Blackjack card-counting techniques to Spanish 21, and do better than you ever did playing Blackjack. Topics covered include: basic strategy for 15+ rule variations, house edge, EOR, standard deviation, the Basic Hi-Lo counting system, optimal betting, indices, money management, camouflage, finding the best games, and much, much more. The author, gaming analyst/programmer Katarina Walker, is recognized as the world authority on Spanish 21 and Australian Pontoon. Foreword written by Don Schlesinger.

Tiki torches, cocktails, la dolce vita, and the music that popularized them—Mondo Exotica offers a behind-the-scenes look at the sounds and obsessions of the Space Age and Cold War period as well as the renewed interest in them evident in contemporary music and design. The music journalist and radio host Francesco Adinolfi provides extraordinary detail about artists, songs, albums, and soundtracks, while also presenting an incisive analysis of the ethnic and cultural stereotypes embodied in exotica and related genres. In this encyclopedic account of films, books, TV programs, mixed drinks, and above all music, he balances a respect for exotica’s artistic innovations with a critical assessment of what its popularity says about postwar society in the United States and Europe, and what its revival implies today. Adinolfi interviewed a number of exotica greats, and Mondo Exotica incorporates material from his interviews with Martin Denny, Esquivel, the Italian film composers Piero Piccioni and Piero Umiliani, and others. It begins with an extended look at the postwar popularity of exotica in the United States. Adinolfi describes how American bachelors and suburbanites embraced the Polynesian god Tiki as a symbol of escape and sexual liberation; how Les Baxter’s album Ritual of the Savage (1951) ushered in the exotica music craze; and how Martin Denny’s Exotica built on that craze, hitting number one in 1957. Adinolfi chronicles the popularity of performers from Yma Sumac, “the Peruvian Nightingale,” to Esquivel, who was described by Variety as “the Mexican Duke Ellington,” to the chanteuses Eartha Kitt, Julie London, and Ann-Margret. He explores exotica’s many sub-genres, including mood music, crime jazz, and spy music. Turning to Italy, he reconstructs the postwar years of la dolce vita, explaining how budget spy films, spaghetti westerns, soft-core porn movies, and other genres demonstrated an attraction to the foreign. Mondo Exotica includes a discography of albums, compilations, and remixes.