The best book in Vegas

Hey, I didn’t say it: the VegasTripping.com editors did. Roll the Bones won the Editor’s Choice 2006 Trippie Award for Best Book. Here’s what they had to say about it:

Modern gambling has evolved into a set of experiences that are defined by legalized numbers rackets (lotto/scratchers), casino gambling, and race betting. ‘Roll The Bones’ - an expansive history of gambling tome written by Dr. David Schwartz, Director of the Gaming Studies program at UNLV, tracks the history of gamblings varied roots from the earliest archeological discoveries of primitive ‘dice’ to the grand opening of the latest and greatest megacasino Wynn Las Vegas, in 2005.

‘Roll the Bones’ is an exhaustively researched, yet completely readable account of the myriad interconnected traditions of gambling around the globe, through the ages. Ever wondered who invented ‘cards’? How the modern game of poker came into being? Which historical figures were degenerate gamblers? The interrelatedness of technology and the development of games of chance - from the forerunners of the printing press to the semiconductor? Its all covered in Roll The Bones… which is, by far, one of the most important books on gambling in the last 10,000 years.

Best Book - Roll The Bones :: TheTrippies 2006 - Best and Worst of Las Vegas Readers Poll

Roll the Bones has also been named the National Council on Problem Gambling’s Book of the Year, so it’s an all-around winner.

I’m on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC right now, so I’m multi-tasking–I’m going to work in a plug for Roll the Bones if I can.