William Hill Co - Sponsor Gambling Book Of Year Award

William Hill have teamed up with Inside Edge magazine to launch a Gambling Book of the Year Award. The short-list will be announced soon. The prize for the winning author will be Ł1000 and Ł500 free bet plus a leather bound copy of their book. Runners-up will both receive Ł250 plus Ł250 free bet plus leather bound book - and all three will receive a subscription to Inside Edge.
IF YOU HAVE A book token hanging around from Christmas that you want to spend on a worthy read then look no further than Deke Castleman's 'Whale Hunt In The Desert' from America's Huntington Press. The book tells the fascinating story of Steve Cyr, the man who made it his business to attract high rolling punters, or 'whales' to the Las Vegas casinos - and he didn't much mind how he went about it. After reading this marvellously well told tale you may not be too worried about whether or not whales of the type described here are an endangered species. But you will certainly be wiser about what goes on in the mysterious world of the big casino players.
The book delves deeply into the whale hunt - with only a limited number of them around they are actively hunted by casino marketing executives, also known as hosts, who try to entice them in via limos, penthouses, shopping sprees, trips abroad, loss discounts and sex. Not the sort of incentive you're likely to be offered to move your weekly fiver flutter down the road to another betting shop!
Huntington Press are based in Las Vegas - check them out at www.huntingtonpress.com - and have a fascinating range of gambling books which are well worth hunting down. I can also recommend Michael Konik's work, a man who delves into the quirkier areas of betting - his 'Telling Lies And Getting Paid' has been out some while but you need to read it if it has passed you by, and 'Gambling Wizards' by Richard W Munchkin - really - looks in depth at eight high rolling players who collectively have won hundreds of millions of dollars taking on the games most people consider to be unbeatable. EDWARD L BOWEN is a supreme historian of the Americn racing scene. When his Legacies Of The Turf was published by Eclipse Press it was hailed instantly as a classic work, with its mix of unbelieveable details and easy to read style. So it is no surprise to be able to rfeport that Volume Two, now also available from Eclipse is a more than worthy follow-up, which stands alone in its own right but also acts as a superb companion volume. The book's sub-title is 'A Century of Great Thoroughbred Breeders' and the only possible criticism of this excellent b ook could be the absence of colour photographs although the black and white style does add a certain elegance and atmosphere. There are great stories within a story here -the man who bred Secretariat yet was too ill to see him race; the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates who honoured his greatest player by naming a colt after him; the Mormon cowboy who beat the East Coast establishment at its own game - and so much more. Enough to keep readers happy until the next volume!