Fast Company: How Six Master Gamblers Defy the Odds - and Always Win

by Jon Bradshaw, Nik Cohn (Introduction)

Poker players Johnny Moss, Pug Pearson, and Titanic Thompson; tennis player Bobby Riggs; pool player Minnesota Fats; and backgammon player Tim Holland have come away with their pockets filled and their sense of infallibility intact. The dramatic descriptions of the ambience and the games are riveting, but more intriguingly, Jon Bradshaw deftly probes these gamblers’ minds and hearts as he attempts to define what makes some men winners and most losers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[David]

Well, four out of six always won, anyway.

[Paul McCormack]

Some goof, some not so good

[Sheehan]

This book from 1975 is a last hurrah of the titans of gambling's early 20th Century American heydey. The book examines the lives of hustlers, gamblers and proposition bettors of yore, Puggy Pearson (poker), Bobby Riggs (tennis), Minnesota Fats (pool), Tim Holland (backgammon), Johnny Moss (poker/pool), and Titanic Thompson (the pope of prop bets); allowing them to tell their own histories.

Bradshaw does great research filling in the spaces between the oral histories of the hustlers, the overall consequence of this effort being a real insight into the daily living of on the margin Americans from the depression era on up to the canonization of Vegas as the sole gambling standard and outlet in the States. I got a real sense that betting, gambling and propositions were much more prevalent and a part of the workingman's lifestyle, than the modern separation of gambling as entertainment, which we engage in apart from our day to day livelihoods.

All of the subjects are truly engaging characters, every one endearing in their own way. Even with socially unacceptable professions in their era, it is clear that all shared common ethical guidelines that informed their hustles; playing a sucker is one thing, outright theft was an entirely uncharacteristic and dismissed behavior.

If you are interested in early 20th Century American oral histories and gambling this book is a must.

[Glen Engel-Cox]

Not really a travel book, like the rest of the Vintage Departures line, but an examination of another culture just the same. Bradshaw profiles six men with something in common–they are all hustlers, that is, gamblers who make a living by their wits. The range here is great, including the tennis player Bobby Riggs and backgammon great Tim Holland, as well as more “traditional” gamblers Minnesota Fats (pool), Pug Pearson and Johnny Moss (poker), and Titanic Thompson (proposition). But these were just what these men were best at–they all exceeded at almost every game they undertook, golf being an extremely common one for each. Bradshaw was a gifted writer. His style makes this book difficult to place down; the subject makes it nigh impossible.

[Jeff Clarke]

Each individual profile is interesting, but follows the same flow, so it gets repetitive. Still an insightful look at the mindset of a gambler.

[Dave Peticolas]

Profiles of 6 gamblers.