In a down-on-its luck neighborhood about five miles away from Las Vegas Boulevard, out of sight of the neon palaces filled with weekenders dropping their cash on quarter slots, blackjack and Celine Dion, a one-story red brick building houses the destination for true gambling devotees.
The Gambler's Book Shop, a high-ceilinged, 6,000-square-foot store about a mile from Fremont Street (the heart of old Las Vegas), stocks more than 1,200 titles covering everything from baccarat to blackjack, from sports betting to slots and on to the history and culture of Las Vegas. "I'm pretty sure we carry the most comprehensive selection of books devoted to gaming in the world," says the store's owner, Howard Schwartz. Odds are, he's right. Where else can you find Pachinko & the Japanese Societyby Ichiro Tanioka or The Effects of Marked Cards in Baccaratby George Joseph? (Not on Amazon.com.)
Admittedly, books on the Japanese game of pachinko are not among the store's top sellers. "Poker, of course, is the hot game right now," Schwartz says. "When Dan Harrington's second book on tournament poker came out [Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments (Two Plus Two Publishing)], we had people calling to find out what time of day it would be available." Indeed, the store's catalogue includes 11 pages of poker titles, and poker books dominate the first wall you see when you walk into the store. But poker is just one of 30 subsections. Gaming professionals come to buy titles like Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition: The Friedman International Standards of Casino Design by Bill Friedman (a 629-page tome that retails for $150) or The Crap Dealer's Primerby Charles Killion (a $16.95 pamphlet not for dice players but for dice dealers). Casino gamblers can find books on table games, and sports bettors can find volumes devoted to football, greyhounds and thoroughbreds.
Schwartz also stocks titles on the history of Las Vegas (including six books on Nevada's legal brothels), novels with gambling themes (Dostoyevski's classic The Gambler is prominently displayed, though Schwartz suggests it is not a hot seller) and an entire section devoted to the psychology and sociology of gambling, including scholarly works like The Confidence Man in American Literatureby Gary Lindberg (Oxford Univ. Press) and The Handbook of Pathological Gambling by Thomas Galski (Charles C. Thomas Pub.). The store also sells videos, gambling software and paraphernalia like poker chips and playing cards.
The business began back in the early 1960s as a publishing venture, when a craps and baccarat dealer named John Luckman (really) wrote and produced a series of six low-priced pamphlets that outlined the basics of keno, baccarat, slots, roulette, blackjack and craps. Ultimately, John and his wife, Edna, published more than 125 books on gaming. In the late 1970s, they hired Schwartz to edit a magazine evaluating gambling systems. The Luckmans' publishing offices turned into an informal clubhouse for local gamblers, and John and Edna started stocking and selling related titles. "It became a place where gamblers would gather to discuss ideas and exchange theories and strategies," says Schwartz.
John Luckman died in 1987. Edna ran the store until her own death in 2002 and left the store to Schwartz, who manages it with the help of eight full-time employees. Gamblers, and those interested in gamblers, come to the store for more than just its books. Schwartz acts as a sort of oral historian of Las Vegas, recounting almost every anecdote ever told about the town. "Lots of writers doing research on the subject come here," says Schwartz. "Jimmy Breslin, Nick Pileggi, Mario Puzo and William Goldman have all been here. And we constantly help people from Hollywood with information on gambling. We even got a credit in the poker movie Rounders."
One thing Schwartz can't do is swap first-person gambling tales. He is not, he says, much of a betting man. He prefers to stick with selling books, a game he knows he can win.
