Customer Reviews

Beat The House: Sixteen Ways to Win at Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, Baccarat and Other Table Games

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

DO NOT BUY...

Frederick Lembeck's "Beat the House" claims to have 16 ways to beat the casinos. Unfortunately, he fails to mention that they all rely on luck. All of his gambling systems will lose money over the long run, however Mr. Lembeck suggests throughout his book "that some tables might actually be rigged"(17). Already Mr. Lembeck is offering you a reason, why you're going to lose. It's not because of his systems, it's those dirty casinos. All of Mr. Lembeck's examples that feature a "profit" don't accurately reflect the odds of receiving a win, or conveniently place the wins where they'd be most beneficial. A true analysis reveals these systems to be flawed.

As well Mr. Lembeck must of had problems coming up with content, because he continually deviates and discusses his grandiose visions about philosophy. He even states, "What I'm really interested in is something extremely different[from gambling systems]: a universally acceptable definition of sin" (122). I'm not sure how this will help me beat the house, but unfortunately I continued to read.

In the closing chapter Mr. Lembeck has a stroke of genius and offers his only system that has a remote probability of working. "The ultimate system is to get God on your side" (177). Wow. Not only is this method unverifiable, but our fellow agnostics and atheists are out of luck.

This book looks interesting at first but after reading and re-reading it and studying and testing the various systems offered I can honestly say the book is worthless and you will lose a lot of money if you try Lembeck's systems at a casino, which the author admits he doesn't even do himself. Furthermore his assertions of "rigged" tables and that "you must stay invisible" and hop from table to table to place each bet are as ludicrous as his systems. The casinos have enough of a mathematical edge to all their games that they have no reason to rig anything, and I personally have sat with pad and paper at the roulette and baccarat tables hundreds of times taking notes and openly playing systems in full view of the players, the dealer, the pit boss and eye in the sky; short of using a computer or cell phone, the casinos could care less what you do at the roulette and baccarat tables because they are not worried about you beating them with a system, at least that has been my experience where I gamble in CT.

The author takes the old D'Alembert system (he doesn't even spell it right)and lists various bet choices in casino games where you can try it. What's remarkable is that he recommends NOT trying many of the variations he suggests in the book. He then goes on to admit that this system, which has been proven over and over to fail (like any other progression), actually doesn't work in a real casino, and then tries to blame casino cheating! That, combined with his religious rantings that have nothing whatever to do with the subject at hand, lead me to seriously question this guy's grip on reality. In fact, one wonders why someone who is so worried about Satan and evil is encouraging gambling in the first place. His "Mathematical Analysis" sections contain neither math nor analysis. Send me your money instead and I'll recommend much, much better books.

Fascinating. He takes the same systems Wall Street institutional investors use to milk the stock market and uses them to milk the craps tables and roulette wheels. He hints that the casinos are crooked, and have to be kept in the dark about the fact that you're using a system, otherwise they'll allegedly cheat you. It would be nice to see some proof of this, but the systems themselves, the first one in particular, HALF PEAK, are extraordinarily thought-provoking. He would have donebetter to have just stuck to mathematical gambling systems.

I bought this book based on its claim to provide mathematically sound analysis of gambling games, based on stock market strategies.

Reading it led me to the conclusion that the author does not have even rudimentary knowledge of probability, expectation or house percentage. His "analysis" consists of doing sets of 100 rolls of dice on his kitchen table!

He then goes on to the inescapable conclusion (to him) that the casinos are "cheating", since his schemes don't work there.

I was so disgusted that I took the time to complain to the publisher, and ended up corresponding to the author himself, who repeated those claims. I even took the time to do a trivial analysis of his "half-peak" system, together with some extensive computer runs, just to show him how bad the systems are.

I had gotten this book from the library about 6 years ago. After running it through the paces of a computer program, I did find that his systems do work.
The systems are based on what goes up, must come down. Well, in real life, that is not always true, at least in your bankrolls time frame. You must use money management. Also, I have found that you MUST run several progressions at the same time. It helps you ride out the ones that have gone a bit long losing.
I found his talk about poss. rigged casinos a bit dated. This was also written before online gambling, which would have been nice. He mentioned several times about the minimum table limits being too high, but they aren't too high online. Too bad those games were avoided because of this.
His talk of God and other things eternal I thought was well done, and did not go on. Plus, you can skip right over it to the systems. Would like to compare notes with others sep2034athotmail.

The systems really work, that's why I gave it 5 stars, but it's too full of syrup to be a really enjoyable read.

People who love the Lord will like this one very much. Atheists will despise it deeply. On the surface it appears to be a collection of mathematical gambling systems, but in his discussion of the phenomenon of luck, he gets into the role of the Almighty, and turns it into a treatise on the spiritual evolution of the human race. An unusual book, notable for its very great integrity. A fun book to read.