Great Books to Help Make You a Winner

Bonus Books, Inc., of Chicago, the nation's leader in quality books about gaming and the publishing home of the most widely read gambling author in history, Frank Scoblete, recently released a couple of new volumes that are highly recommended not just for their entertainment value, but also for the sheer knowledge you can pick up to help make you a better casino player.

First up is The Video Poker Answer Book, the third in syndicated gaming columnist John Grochowski's popular "answer book" series for Bonus. The 278-page paperback ($13.95) is a most worthy companion to its predecessors, The Casino Answer Book and The Slot Machine Answer Book.

It's no secret that video poker has become one of the most popular casino games. As a matter of fact, since its introduction some 20 years ago, video poker has become one of America's favorite games of chance, rivaling blackjack as the second most popular casino game behind slot machines.

What's especially attractive about video poker is that expert play can blow reel slot games right out of the water. Optimum video poker strategy allows you to play the house very close to even, and in rare cases, you can even enjoy a slight advantage. But there are so many varieties of games and pay tables that you have to know which ones to play and which ones to avoid. That's where John Grochowski's The Video Poker Answer Book is worth its weight in $100 chips!

Grochowski gives his easy-to-understand insights into how the machines work and the best strategies for attacking up-to-date variations on this casino standard. He gives you all the information you need about how to recognize a high-paying machine, how bonuses on certain hands affect playing strategy, and guidelines on strategy that will keep the house advantage on each game to a bare minimum while increasing your chances to go home a winner.

The question-and-answer format makes reading and learning a snap. If you've never played video poker because you were intimidated by strategy, fear no more. The Video Poker Answer Book will make you the best video poker player you can be. You might even abandon the traditional reel slots for good once you become familiar with video poker!

Bonus Book's other prime summer release is titled 109 Ways to Beat the Casinos. The 147-page paperback ($13.95) is a compilation of tips from a team of six of the most prominent gaming authors in the country: Frank Scoblete, Henry Tamburin, John Grochowski, Fred Renzey, Walter Thomason, and Alene Paone. Walter Thomason, who also wrote Twenty-First Century Blackjack for Bonus Books, edited the text.

109 Ways to Beat the Casino is a refreshing departure from many gambling books that are filled with mathematics and statistics. It gives you simple, clear-cut advice on how to improve your chances of winning at every game of chance offered by the casinos. The book explains in simple language how recreational gamblers can maximize their profit potential by applying winning strategies to each and every game from blackjack to craps, roulette to baccarat, slots to video poker, sports book betting to "live" poker, plus best bet strategies for Caribbean Stud, Let It Ride, and Three Card Poker.

The format of the book is such that you can thumb through it, pick up a tip or two, then set it down for another time. After you digest the info that's packed so concisely in the 109 tips, you'll wish that Thomason had made it 209 Ways to Beat the Casino!

There's more from Bonus Books, Inc., including yet another book from the amazingly prolific Frank Scoblete, who expands on his strategies and philosophies for the dice table with Forever Craps (140-pages, $13.95). If you liked Scoblete's Beat the Craps out of the Casinos: How to Play Craps and Win!, you'll love his new book. Frank's 5-Count strategy from the legendary "Captain of Craps" is arguably the best craps playing method ever devised.

Bonus also introduced Frank Scoblete's Get-the-Edge Series of books with the first two installments: Get The Edge at Blackjack (160-page paperback, $13.95) by John May and Thrifty Gambling (175-page paperback, $13.95) by yours truly.

John May, a professional "advantage" player, outlines revolutionary methods that work, including how to take advantage of dealer errors, how to beat the shuffle machines, card counting at single-deck and multiple-deck games, card sequencing, and ace locating. John's book will be out later this year.

In Thrifty Gambling, which is available now, I attempt to arm average recreational players with methods of attack and the information necessary to make them the most intelligent and well-informed gamblers they can be while at the same time deriving the most fun and profit from their gambling dollars. It stresses strategies about keeping the value of one's hard-earned money in proper perspective, the one mindset that strikes terror in the hearts of casino operators!