“How science and math are taking the luck out of gambling”
by Adam Kucharski
(Basic Books 2016)
As a math major, I get a kick about the way gambling has been branded as the “Gaming Industry,” as if it were a productive activity for a successful society. I don’t gamble because I know the odds. Most people sense that you really can’t win over the long term. 
But there are exceptions. Some have found ways to beat blackjack, roulette, lotteries, horse racing, online betting, and more. Mr. Kucharski does an excellent job of explaining how people have found these winning strategies, using probability data to identify deviations from randomness (e.g. a poorly crafted roulette wheel) and inaccurate odds that can be played for financial gain.
The author details many schemes dating back over 100 years. For example, in the 1890s, a Monaco newspaper published the results of a casino’s roulette spins—every spin—providing useful data to study the odds, right? Mathematician and statistical genius Karl Pearson was studying roulette wheel randomness and determined that the spin data was suspicious, because there were not enough “runs” of a color (e.g. 3 spins hit red numbers in a row). He was right. The reporters were just making it up the result. They only put effort in keeping the red/black ratio near 50%!
There are many more stories of systems and the people who discovered them. Modern systems tend toward computer based analysis—none seem particularly easy, but require significant work and time to exploit. Then, if you do find a system for winning, the casinos (or other venues) will lawfully ban you from gambling, as Edward Thorp, the “father of card counting” in the early 1960s, was banned from Las Vegas blackjack tables, and resorted to wearing disguises to sneak in.
There is a thorough reference section and index. My only suggestion for improvement would be to use more graphics. I highly recommend this book for curious gamblers, students, and those teaching statistics.
Teachers:
A good activity for statistics students might be to present, with graphics, a summary of how a particular gambling system worked, and how some of these methods resulted in game rules changing, such as adding cards to the blackjack “deck.”