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Blackjack Books



Theory of Blackjack, 6th Edition
by Peter Griffin

     The Theory of Blackjack is must reading for the advanced card counter. It is unquestionably one of the best books ever written on card counting. This book is a tool for those interested in the underlying mathematics of the game of blackjack. This book thoroughly explains the mathematics behind basic strategy and card counting techniques in a way that really makes sense. For those people who just want the numbers, many blackjack simulators are currently on the market and most of the simulators would give you the numbers in the book (the software is even better because you can customize the table conditions). So the main reason to buy the book would be for the explanations behind the math. Unfortunately, even for those who are mathematically inclined (for whom some of this book will still be beyond your grasp), Griffin often does not explain why particular statistical methods are appropriate presumably he assumes familiarity with the underlying mathematics.
     If you are a beginner to the field of pro blackjack, don't buy this book. Buy Stanford Wong's Professional Blackjack or some of the other card counting books on this list. If you are starting out counting cards you need to know this: card counting isn't easy. Most people think you just sit there playing blackjack and count the cards while putting in about as much effort as you do watching TV. This book shows some of the hard knowledge you will need to learn in order to be successful. The intimidating nature of the book may convince you that you don't have the talent, patience, or time to become a good card counter.


The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic
by Richard A. Epstein

     This book covers the mathematics behind gambling, in an extraordinarily well-written yet technical manner. The author covers all sorts of games such as blackjack and bridge, and provides all the mathematical reasoning behind the probabilities. Mathematical maturity is needed to gain a good understanding of this book. Subject matter begins with one of the most basic probability topics, coin-tossing, and then progresses into other topics, like card games, stock market speculation, games requiring pure skill including board games, horse-racing, discussion of fallacies, and military strategy.


Basic Blackjack
by Stanford Wong

     This 256-page book presents basic strategy and expected value for almost every unusual rule variation ever offered. Examples of rules covered: no hole card to dealer, doubling down on three or more cards, splitting when there is a bet riding that will go on one hand and not have to be matched with a like bet on the other hand, early surrender, five-card hands can be turned in for a half win, over/under, multiple action, double exposure. Wong's impressive text contains proper basic strategy for just about every rule variation and "bonus" (side bet, coupon, etc) that has ever been offered. It also tells you how to estimate the value of each of these variations.
     You should know what to expect before you buy this book. This book is extremely successful at what it tries to do, but it won't help your game much. If you are like most card counters, you probably play a game that has the same rules (i.e. Las Vegas or Atlantic City) you probably won't encounter any of these variations and therefore have no need to memorize his charts. So the only reason to buy this book is to have it as a reference guide or if you find it interesting to read about all of the rule variations, side bets, and bonuses that the casinos have to offer.


Beat the Dealer
by Edward O. Thorp

     This book started it all. Before this book, card counting wasn't very popular and the systems out there were way too basic. Thorp analyzed the game, ran computer simulations, and created strategies for making money while counting cards. This book is of historical importance because it is the first book written, as it is the oldest, with a viable counting system. A must have for your blackjack library.
With that being said, much of the information is outdated so this won't be the book you buy if you want to learn a system of how to count cards. The appeal of this book is being able to relive the earliest stages of basic strategy and card counting and tells a story on how Mr. Thorp tested his theory in Vegas.




Million Dollar Blackjack
by Ken Uston

      For some, this book will be informative, entertaining, inspiring, and will serve as a useful reference down the road as well. For players who have read a couple of counting books already, this book will serve as a historical text for those that are interested about the evolution of card counting in the 70's and 80's because much of the information doesn't apply anymore. The information about card counting techniques is outdated by decades and many casinos have knocked out single- and double-deck games, moving to 6 and 8 deck shoes. The advice on risk of ruin and betting has been improved singe then and there are simpler and better counting systems out there now.
Although these concepts have been simplified in recent years, this book is still a good read. His stories about fighting off Griffin agents and pit bosses are the stuff of legends. The stories in this book pay for the price itself. And while the comps information is 20 years too late, it still makes for interesting reading.


Professional Blackjack
by Stanford Wong

      Although Stanford Wong is not the most exciting writer out there (his dry style reads like a telephone directory), this book is one of the best books if you want to learn a simple, yet powerful, counting system to use. His other book, Basic Blackjack, is anything but basic. It gives you numbing detail of every deviation of every playing condition in history. His other book Blackjack Secrets is a hodgepodge of useful tidbits that help you improve your game but you can't build a basic system around. That's where this book comes in. It is a very easy to understand book. It is not particularly geared to the beginner blackjack player but I think it is geared to the beginning counter. The only criticism I have of that this book was written under a pseudonym - based on the fact that the author makes a lot of money counting cards and doesn't want to get caught. Therefore, I wish it had more stories of his personal success at the tables so I know this stuff really works rather than abstract theory.


The World's Greatest Blackjack Book
by Lance Humble, Carl Cooper, Ken Cooper

     The book is a very straightforward book on blackjack and card counting that is entertaining and easy to read. The first part of the book concentrates on introducing you to the gambling world and how it works. Later in the book he introduces the Hi-Opt I counting system, which is easy to learn and not just for geniuses. Nevertheless the system is weak when certain rules are implemented by the casinos. The system is fine for the amateur player who goes to casinos strictly for fun or to break even. It not as easy or powerful as the simple Hi/Lo method.
Overall, the book is a very good buy. The author thoroughly explains the ins and outs of gambling and does a great job teaching Basic Strategy, the Hi-Opt I counting method, and adjustments to Basic Strategy to accommodate the Hi-Opt I. Although it is very lengthy and contains some fluff that could have been omitted, the book presents all aspects of the game in an easy to read format. The major downside of the book was that it was printed in the 80's. The comparison of blackjack conditions in various casinos was based off the casinos that existed in the 70's and 80's. Obviously, that has changed drastically. Most of the mathematics and strategies are described for single, double and four deck games, which still exist, but more common these days are six or eight deck games.


Blackjack Secrets
by Stanford Wong

     Blackjack Secrets is a hodgepodge of random tidbits that help out your game. It contains many interesting stories written by blackjack authorities like Daniel Forbes, Peter Giles, Donald Schlesinger, and Marvin French. It teaches you how to look like a gambler, how to play a winning game of blackjack without sending up red flags that alert casino management to your skill at the game. It is mostly text -- its 250 pages contain only 19 tables. The intermediate player may be able to glean a few helpful tips from it but the advanced counter will gain little, if anything, from reading this book. As with Wong's other books, there is some information that is still useful in today' game and there is other information that is old. If you can't discern between the two then reading this book can lead you in the wrong direction and wind up costing you a lot more than the cover price.


Blackjack For Blood: The Card-Counters' Bible, and Complete Winning Guide
by Bryce Carlson

     This book is well written, very motivational, does a good job in explaining the "theory" of card counting and has nice charts on playing basic strategy are great. The author explains the ups and the down of a BJ player, how to manage the money accordingly, and has some nice anecdotes of high-roller life. He also emphasizes that winning isn't easy and you have to put some work into it.
For the intermediate player, the book offers a basic card counting strategy. And for the advanced player, the book introduces an advanced level two count system that is more accurate to use than the simple hi/lo system. The level two system, however, is slightly more complicated and requires the player to practice longer in order to master.


Playing Blackjack As a Business
by L. Revere

     Revere's book was written quite a long time ago and was a breakthrough for players looking to make money as opposed to Thorpe's which was more on the academic aspect of card counting. Although the text is poorly written, it has excellent color-coded strategy charts which made the strategies easy to understand. It teaches 3 different methods of counting. The systems are sound and the book isn't too heavy in math so that the average person will have no problems with it. This book is quite a bit out of date though. Twenty years ago this was probably the best card counting book out there but these days there are better out there so there is no differentiating factor which would motivate you to buy it today - unless you specifically want to learn the Point Count method. The book doesn't cover any 6 or 8 deck games because they didn't have them back in his day. It doesn't go over any variations of the game and there is no advice on dealing with heat. He also tries to sell his better strategies. Back in his day I'm sure there weren't many resources for someone looking to learn and his information probably deserved some kind of monetary compensation but in the current days of the Internet people can get this info for free so the sales pitch comes off a little cheesy and the book can come off like a large advertisement to his real system that is not included. Other systems are now available that are much easier and have similar accuracy (like Hi/Lo), so you might want to learn those instead.


Blackbelt in Blackjack: Playing 21 As a Martial Art
by Arnold Snyder

     This is yet another introduction to card-counting. Unfortunately, the 1983 edition teaches concepts which are useless in today's casinos (such as "depth charging") and the game is no longer single-deck dealt games. The book is still a good beginner's tutorial, but Snyder does a disservice to the beginner by keeping such outdated impressions and information in the new edition; and the added information on shuffle tracking will only be useful to the advanced player. The two systems presented, "Red 7s" and "Zen", are still useful today, although "Hi-Lo" and "KO" are more widely used and (in the case of KO) more modern. Despite big changes in the way the game is dealt, very little has changed in the new edition. He talks about bankroll requirements more, which is good, but the major change is the addition of a section on shuffle tracking -- an advanced technique which goes far beyond what a beginner would want to learn and is more of a niche strategy as oposed to card counting.


Knock-Out Blackjack
by Olaf Vancura, Ken Fuchs

     This book introduces one of the simplest effective card counting systems. It's a good book for the blackjack player who wants to learn a powerful, yet easy to use card counting system. It has your typical introduction to the game, discussion of basic strategy, introduction to card counting, and some blackjack history sprinkled in. In addition, this book has a chapter that compares the KO system to other card counting systems. If you have tried to learn other system but failed then this may be the book for you.


The big player: How a team of blackjack players made a million dollars
by Ken Uston

     Back in the late 70's and early 80's, Ken Uston was the king of blackjack. The Big Player the story of how he gets recruited into a team of card counters to play and win blackjack against the casinos. This book is about his story and does not present any card counting systems. He talks about his dealing with casinos and getting kicked out. Anyone interested in blackjack will love this book. It reads like fiction and is the premise is similar to Bringing Down The House. The book has been out of print for a long time and is very hard to find.


Las Vegas Blackjack Diary
by Stuart Perry

     This book is the antithesis of a book like Bringing Down the House. A book like that is written to tell you about some exciting story that happened to a bunch of card-counting cowboys who get barred from casinos and get chased by police. But this drama isn't what card-counting is about. This book tells you what it is REALLY like to be a card counter. Card counting is boring. It's a job. You walk into a casino, do some math, and hopefully walk out with more money than you came in with. Image your high school algebra class with a deck of cards on your desk. You gotta love the game and not all these extracurricular activities that went on with the MIT team because they aren't going to happen to you. No one will write a book about you or make a movie about you. In fact, successful card-counters want complete anonymity and privacy - they need it to survive.
This book is a sober glimpse into the lifestyle of a professional blackjack player and makes no bold claims. Most so-called "reputable" books out there have some anecdotal or theoretical evidence about how much money they have made. And most of the books are even telling the truth, but this book gives you a real-time account of a counting system in action showing the daily financial and emotional swings. Some readers have complained that this book is boring and it reads like a balance sheet. Well guess what? When you count cards that what your life is like - its a grind. So get used to it.


Blackjack Attack: Playing the Pros' Way
by Don Schlesinger

     This book is not a typical book which teaches you a card counting system. It is mainly a book about blackjack system statistics. Although the book covers most of the statistical aspects of Blackjack in a clear, concise, and accurate fashion, it has little value for the real-world player. This is definitely not a book for blackjack beginners - the author goes into too-minute detail of card counting and it expects you to already know basic strategy, card counting, and all the various rules variations. There is no talk about the fact that casinos are constantly adding to their anti-card counter techniques. The author of this book is not so much a blackjack system inventor as he is a blackjack system analyst.
For those that want the math and know what they are getting into, the book teaches you how to accurately evaluate your risk and expectation for any set of casino rules and is a very valuable reference resource. But for a typical blackjack book "reader", you will probably be disapointed. The chapters are glued together from the author's old articles from Blackjack Forum magazine with no cohesion.


Blackjack and the Law
by I. Nelson Rose, Robert A. Loeb

     This book is about blackjack law and is written by two prominent attorneys in the field of gaming law look at the issues from the blackjack players' perspective. It attempts to answer some of the old questions that have been lingering regarding the law: Can skilled players be banned from games just because they can win? Can they bring you into the backroom for interrogation? What is the definition of cheating? Are laws different at the Indian reservation casinos? Is internet gambling legal?
Although this book probably won't be one of the first books you buy, it will probably be a book you will want to buy eventually. Why? Two reasons. First, it is the only book out there that tackles the issues as well as it does. And secondly, most of the issues it addresses are issues that most serious gamblers will eventually face. Although "Blackjack Law" falls under the niche category, this book is a nice all-in-one place to deal with a lot of the nagging questions players face. The only other way for a player to get answers is to post to an Internet newsgroup hoping to start a comprehensive thread (fat chance) or spend 200 hours digging through Google.


Bringing Down The House : The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
by Ben Mezrich

      The book is about Kevin Lewis, an MIT student who gets recruited to play in a blackjack card counting team at MIT and make tons of money from casinos. The first thing I want to point out about this book is that it was not written for gamblers or blackjack players. It was written for the public. Therefore, two things come to mind. First, it was written pretty poorly - it is a mass-marketed piece of non-literature. Secondly, the descriptions of the blackjack systems they use will be minimal because the authors don't want to alienate novice readers. Therefore I will write a review aimed at different readers.
For those non-blackjack players out there, this book will excite you. It will introduce you to the world of card counting. It reads like a fast-paced fiction novel, and the whole time you are reading it you will say to yourself, "I can't believe this really happened".
For the literary novices out there, this book will be one of the best you will ever read. There is more drama per page than almost any book out there - from the players checking into Vegas hotels under assumed names, to pretending not to know each other, to communicated in the casinos with gestures and card-count code words. You will be held hostage on an emotional roller coaster ride as you tag along with the MIT group waiting to see what kind of trouble those crazy mathmatical wizards are going to get into next.
For the literary types out there, you will not like this book. The 7th grade prose is tedious, the characters are flat, and there is little mention of anything beyond the straight story. This book could have been a much broader endeavor - like educating people on the background of card counting, or a little Las Vegas history, or more from the personal background of the main participants. Much of the excitement you get from the book is tempered by the slight disapointment brought about by the unrealistic expectations generated from the title - "Bringing Down The House". The students are not trying to bring down the house - no card counter wants to do that. If he accomplished this then where would he count cards? And a lot of the hype was from the fact that these kids were supposed geniuses from MIT who devised a new way to beat casinos when the mathematical methods they used have been around for 30 years. It wasn't card counting that made them money - it was team play.
For the people who play blackjack already, you will know most of the story already - it is not a new one. The system they use is a system based on the Hi/Lo system which is based on Thorp's system (isn't everything?) The only redeeming value would be the specific of team play - of which there are few manuals to do (even though it is pretty much common sense). For people who liked this book I would also recommend Amarillo Slim's new memoir, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People.


Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas
by Pete Earley

     This was an interesting and very readable book about the new "Super Casinos"of Las Vegas. Using an unbiased, journalistic approach, the author starts with a brief history of Las Vegas (peppered with highly entertaining historical information) before delving into an in-depth look at the Circus-Circus. There is a lot of interesting information about how any casino works - from the positioning of slot machines and how they are programmed to pay out to high-stakes card tables to how room rates can change by the minute to maximize occupancy rates. Like any good writer, Earley effectively weaves several seperate stories within the book. From casino employees to corporate executives to a Vegas showgirl to a Vegas prostitute, these side stories serve to entertain the reader while not distracting him from the main story - how casinos work. The two aspects of the book work well together. The history of Vegas was and the biographies of residents were written in an engaging manner while the descriptions of the casinos were not only a lesson about the innerworkings of a casino but they were also a study in business in general.


24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas
by Andres Martinez

     In April 1998, Andrés Martinez withdrew $50,000 from the bank - most of the advance he was paid for the book - and boarded a plane to Las Vegas and was told by the publisher to stay in Las Vegas for a month to gamble the money and write about it. I had low expectations about this book (mainly because no one ever talks about it) but the clever premise of the book, the energy the author has, and the vivid description of the action keeps you entertained. The writer has a healthy amount of sarcasm which is something I can't help but admire.

One thing I didn't like about this book was that Martinez seemed like an amateur gambler - like gambling was something he didn't really even like to do. This was apparent in the first week or so that he spent there and his bankroll was still around $48,000 - not too exciting. He also didn't play too many games. He played baccarat for longer than I wanted him to and made the occasional foray into the blackjack and craps area. And he didn't play poker at all - the game that probably has the most colorful characters. I wanted to tell the author I was going to hit the snooze button and tell him to wake me up when he wants to sit down with his $50,000 at a no-limit Texas hold Em table.
The author concentrates mainly on the gaming action but he does manage to slip in some well-written Las Vegas history and also some interesting conversations he had with some of the locals. I wish he had more of these as well as maybe some background on the history of some of the games but even without these the book was still solid.


Las Vegas Behind the Tables
by Barney Vinson

     This book is full of personal experiences, interviews with many people from different parts of the gambling industry, Las Vegas trivia, and written in a light manner which makes it fun to read. Most of the facts are outdated because the book is old but this book should be looked at as a glimpse of Vegas from the 1970's and 1980's. This book (and its sequel) give a very interesting and humorous look at the world of Las Vegas.