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Richard Marcus (most likely not his real name, in fact, the name is the same as that of the actor in a TV series called The Pretender) tells of his successful career as a casino cheat. He started as a garden-variety gambler, lost all his money, found himself homeless in Las Vegas, and became a blackjack dealer.
Marcus was recruited by a well-to-do casino rip-off gang and rose to the top over the years. He tells great stories about which casinos the gang hit, how they engineered the con, the trouble they ran into, and how they were nearly caught several times. The gang even made their way to casinos in London, the Continent, and Australia, although their base was in Las Vegas. The opening of casinos in Atlantic City and across the U.S. made for some easy pickings as well.
American Roulette is not an instructional manual on how to scam the casinos. In fact, as Marcus points out, even if you were to learn the mechanics and technicalities of the scam, there is something more basic to the success of the con game and that is being cool under pressure. These characters are glaciers.
American Roulette is a terrific read, and would make a fantastic movie.
The group also would occasionally make money with other scams, like "railing"--stealing directly out of the chip racks of their fellow players. They also narrowly avoid getting involved in a card-marking scheme, violating their own rules of not using any specialized equipment that could be incriminating.
The book is most interesting for the characters involved and how they dealt with "steam" from the casinos when they caught on to what was happening.
The author appears to have no guilt or remorse for his actions on the grounds that casinos are regularly "stealing" from people every day (though that certainly doesn't justify the thefts directly from other gamblers, and ignores that gamblers are willing participants who know the odds are stacked against them).
I read _Bringing Down the House_ about the MIT Blackjack Team about a year and a half ago, and the comparison between the teams is interesting--the MIT team's methodology was far more sophisticated (and wasn't technically cheating), but both had to use similar psychological techniques.
It's surprising that the casinos didn't come up with better countermeasures quickly (a rule that there are no payouts for high-value chips not announced in advance, for example), but I find Marcus' overall tale quite plausible, in part because of the factors he points out in the last few pages of the book--"practically all casino jobs are monotonous" (p. 369). The boredom results in lack of attention and the jobs' high turnover results in inexperienced people up against very experienced cheaters.
The true story of Richard Marcus' 25 year career as a casino cheater, American Roulette presents itself in a straightforward manner, similar to Frank Abagnale or Nicholas Pileggi, rather than Mezrich (a former novelsit, who, although entertaining, seems to take more liberty with the constrictions of truth).
American Roulette's emphasis on believability, over stylized drama, pays off beautifully. And why should he over stylize anything, when his adventures feature the allure of exotic locales, beautiful women, an investigator obsessed with busting him, and almost constant tension.
A group of colorful, carefree and quite likeable outlaws band together travelling the globe successfully cheating the world's casinos. Several close calls remind us of the motivation for Marcus' close knit teams to invent new cheating "moves" in a constant effort to stay one step ahead of the gaming security systems.
Perhaps the author's most impressive accomplishment besides never having been arrested and prosecuted for his deeds is that the detailed workings of the actual cheating "moves" he successfully employed are made crystal clear to the reader, even those unfamiliar with casino gambling.
A highly recommended glimpse into an unseen world.
AMERICAN ROULETTE is about gambling, but it is more about cheating at gambling, or more specifically, systematically cheating at casino gambling. Author Richard Marcus made a very nice living for decades by cheating casinos. He is unapologetic about it; in fact, he is quite proud of the methods he used. His justification appears to be that casinos cheat their customers, so he is merely getting his own back. This is arguably a self-serving view. Anyone entering a casino has at least a rudimentary idea of whose side the laws of chance reside; one either chooses to gamble or not. Philosophical considerations aside, however, AMERICAN ROULETTE remains a fascinating study in the hows and wherefores of casino cheating, as well as casino security. Casinos, understandably, are not in the business of losing money. While the individual scores that cheaters like Marcus might inflict may individually be relatively small, taken in the aggregate they could constitute death by a thousand cuts. Casinos accordingly are quite interested in stanching the flow and are constantly playing Tom to Marcus's larcenous Jerry.
Marcus describes in AMERICAN ROULETTE how he first became involved in casino cheating. He actually started off as a casino dealer. One night he received an interesting proposition from a man named Joe Classon. Classon offered Marcus a spot on his "team." The entire purpose of Classon's team was to cheat casinos out of money. It quickly becomes evident from reading AMERICAN ROULETTE that great casino heists are not carried out individually. A well-disciplined, well-oiled team is an absolute must for any chance of success. Classon, from this account, had one of the best. He became teacher, leader, mentor and father figure to Marcus, instructing him in the methods of casino cheating and encouraging him to devise methods of his own. Marcus for the most part does an incredible job of explaining the methodology of both the games and the methods of cheating that he utilized to beat the casinos. Notwithstanding my unfamiliarity with such games as blackjack and roulette, there was only a time or two during AMERICAN ROULETTE when I felt lost at sea.
After Classon retired, however, Marcus began leading his own team and utilized his potential as a casino thief to the fullest. Marcus is quite straightforward in explaining his techniques. However, though he does so in a step-by-step-manner, this is not a "how-to" book. If anything, one who would seek to follow in Marcus's footsteps would be dissuaded by AMERICAN ROULETTE. It is obvious from reading the book that a casino thief requires a combination of skills --- coordination, nerve, sleight of hand and patience --- that is rarely found in combination in one individual. Additionally, a successful casino thief needs at least one assistant that can be totally trusted. And then, of course, there are the casinos, which understandably frown on cheating. While the days of cheaters being dry-gulched are reportedly over (and I'm not entirely convinced of that) the legal penalties are quite severe. Penalties can only be imposed, however, if one is caught; and even then, as Marcus demonstrates in AMERICAN ROULETTE, they can be avoided.
Marcus waited until retirement to write his "tell-all" book, which serves as an interesting counterpoint to the investigative television shows one stumbles across randomly on cable television that concern casino security. While technological advances have made things more difficult for the Richard Marcuses of the gambling world, they have not made it impossible. And while Marcus is hardly a role model, his account is an interesting and often suspenseful glimpse into a world of which relatively few are aware. Recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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