Book Summary V (Inside Las Vegas)



Talk about a page-turner, at no point did I ever want to put this book down. And it's not even that long a book. This is a coffee table book for all intensive purposes. Something you can leave around so anybody can read a little, you don't need to read it from beginning to end though there is a narrative.

It's Mario Puzo's take on Las Vegas, and it was written in 1977. Which means the mafia is still present but currently on its way out, and even at this stage he's already talking about the lacking customer service by comparison to the 1950s and 60s. And how the whole thing feels a little corporate. After all that's truly what got rid of the Mafia's in the long run. Corporate interest just bought them out, and today most of Las Vegas is run by various companies. Rather they be movie studios, major theme park entertainers, Japanese computer engineering companies. There's even a few Chinese markets, much like how certain Las Vegas casinos owned a lot of Rights in Macao (the Chinese Las Vegas.)

Really it's a love letter to Las Vegas. Mario Puzo talks about his days as a degenerate gambler . His various habits and routines, what casinos he went to and how to play the games. He also makes it incredibly clear that there's no good way to beat the house. Beyond there being too many safeguards, the house percentage is just too good. And at the end of the day 'why would you want to beat the house in the long run' . If you beat the house constantly there wouldn't be a casino, the point of a casino isn't really about making money, it's about the entertainment of it all. You go there to witness the sparkling lights, the dazzling arrays, the wonderful entertainment and the Fantastic games. Winning money is more of a lucky fluke.

He also talks about the history of Las Vegas from at humble beginnings as an Indian tribe or they played their own gambling games to be early days with small casinos located in the back rooms of pubs and other businesses because of Nevada's heavy anti-gambling laws at the time. He'll touch on a few other things like the Mormons attempt to spread their religion into the state and the US militarise involvement as time went on. And he doesn't all with his Mario Puzo romanticization. It's mainly fiction mixed in with sprinkles of History. It almost feels like reading Caesar's conquest of Gaul. For the persons talking about very real things but you know they're stretching the truth a bit at certain points.

Then he'll talk about the history of Las Vegas from humble beginnings as an Indian tribe community where they played their own gambling games. To early days with small casinos located in the back rooms of pubs and other businesses because of Nevada's heavy anti-gambling laws at the time. He'll go on about a few other things like the Mormons attempt to spread their religion into the state and the US militarise involvement as time went on. And he dose it all with his Mario Puzo romanticising. It's mainly fiction mixed with a sprinkles of History. It almost feels like reading Caesar's conquest of Gaul. For the people are talking about very real things but you know they're stretching the truth a bit at certain points. 
He also talks about off a lot about the history of gambling in England and its early days, how it was done only in certain rooms at certain places And how it was structured in such a way that it would steal everyone's money and neglect future business.

Despite not telling you how to win at the casino games he does lead you on with some of the attempts that have been made over the years. Like the man who would steal a $500 chip and hide it inside a hollowed-out wristwatch. Or the people that would try to use overpowered magnets to screw up the slot machines, or the urban legend about always betting on red as opposed to black at a roulette table. One of the ideas being that the black paint had a kind of reflective varnish put on it that would cause the ball to jump out more as opposed to the red paint which had more friction and therefore would hold on to the ball better. Such a speculation has never been proven and it's more likely that people like to bet on red simple because it's a brighter and more vibrant colour.

Really what I liked most about this book is how it changed my perception on gambling. Before reading this I'd only seen gambling as a vice, a waste of time and energy by the general populace. A sucker's game if you will. But I've come to respect gambling as I continue to read, Mario Puzo makes it very clear that you should only play for the entertainment value and that the only time he ever cheated is when he was down and only so he could keep playing. One should never cheat in general especially if you're winning , for there's no real point to it. And if you get figured out you'll be banned from the casinos forever if not worse.
There's a certain amount of time dedicated to the mathematics of Casino percentages.
Explaining how the different percentages affect each game, and despite these percentages sometimes you can have a hot streak and win for hours on end against the house. Sometimes the hot streak is so amazing that a casino will lose money for several weeks consistently, thinking they're being cheated out of money by one of the employees. Only to discover later on that it really was just the luck of the draw.
And yes Mario Puzo does talk a little bit about the Mafia too. From the casino skimming operations to the much more interesting VIP operations they had, where they would fly out high class customers all-expenses-paid so they can spend a crap ton of money in a casino. Even if they didn't pay them up front in Las Vegas they find a way to get their money later on.

This is a definite recommendation from me. It's one of my all-time favourite books by one of my all-time favourite authors. He's not Dostoyevsky or Erich Maria but he still fairly enjoyable. A shame that he's more serious books never took off.

If you've read Mario Puzo's ''Fools die'' that I most definitely suggest ''Inside Las Vegas.'' Reading 'Inside Las Vegas' is like having a commentary track for 'Fools die'. Which is a very strange thing for a novel, it also works as the inspiration for 'Fools die' as many of the key points from that particular novel are mentioned in this book.

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