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Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss

Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss

List Price: $24.00
Your Price: $24.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Gambling and Loss???
Review: "We're better situated than most people. We've got good jobs. We had some extra money. It was disposable income in some sort of almost cartoonish sense, and we disposed of it. Most people, I suspect, don't have that luxury. A lot of people, even if they lose a little money, probably could have put that money to use in their lives in a way their lives needed." -Frederick Barthelme

This is no tragedy or eye-opening story on the evils of gambling. If you want those meet me in Vegas! haha...

These guys are just plain BAD gamblers. They claim to have read all the books on Blackjack and understand how to count cards to gain a small advantage over the house yet they find playing that way to be boring. They call themselves "above average" players but tell us they often take insurance bets. Even partial knowledge of basic strategy would keep an "above average" player from making this bet. They have no concept of money management and often spent hours chasing their losses with larger bets just trying to get back to even. And SLOTS??? jeezus! Knowing slots are a poor gaming choice these brothers still sunk thousands of dollars into them often hitting jackpots only to lose it all back by stepping up to the next denomination of machine. One brother won 130,000 in slot jackpots in one year and still lost several thousand on slots for the year.

Their tales of gambling are pretty boring and can be witnessed every day by visiting a casino near you. Their addiction is that they like to have a good time and have the money to do it.

The charges brought against them were pretty silly. The casino has tapes showing a dealer possibly giving signals on when to take insurance or not to. There were 50 something hands over 2 nights in question and we didn't get a detailed break down on the hands but when the casino finally pulled them off the table they were down several thousand dollars. So they are not only bad gamblers but possibly bad cheaters as well. I don't think there was probably any real threat of conviction. It did not scare them enough to stop gambling, they simply moved to another casino. They still gamble today. Awhile back an interviewer wanted to see them in action and he certainly did. 17,000 dollars lost over a few hours.

Anyway, it is a quick read. Pretty unremarkable story. I read it on the plane to pass time. The money spent on this book would be better spent at your local casino. Hang out by the cash machine. Wait for some sad sack to pull out his last 20.00... buy him a drink and listen to his story!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Gambling and Loss???
Review: "We're better situated than most people. We've got good jobs. We had some extra money. It was disposable income in some sort of almost cartoonish sense, and we disposed of it. Most people, I suspect, don't have that luxury. A lot of people, even if they lose a little money, probably could have put that money to use in their lives in a way their lives needed." -Frederick Barthelme

This is no tragedy or eye-opening story on the evils of gambling. If you want those meet me in Vegas! haha...

These guys are just plain BAD gamblers. They claim to have read all the books on Blackjack and understand how to count cards to gain a small advantage over the house yet they find playing that way to be boring. They call themselves "above average" players but tell us they often take insurance bets. Even partial knowledge of basic strategy would keep an "above average" player from making this bet. They have no concept of money management and often spent hours chasing their losses with larger bets just trying to get back to even. And SLOTS??? jeezus! Knowing slots are a poor gaming choice these brothers still sunk thousands of dollars into them often hitting jackpots only to lose it all back by stepping up to the next denomination of machine. One brother won 130,000 in slot jackpots in one year and still lost several thousand on slots for the year.

Their tales of gambling are pretty boring and can be witnessed every day by visiting a casino near you. Their addiction is that they like to have a good time and have the money to do it.

The charges brought against them were pretty silly. The casino has tapes showing a dealer possibly giving signals on when to take insurance or not to. There were 50 something hands over 2 nights in question and we didn't get a detailed break down on the hands but when the casino finally pulled them off the table they were down several thousand dollars. So they are not only bad gamblers but possibly bad cheaters as well. I don't think there was probably any real threat of conviction. It did not scare them enough to stop gambling, they simply moved to another casino. They still gamble today. Awhile back an interviewer wanted to see them in action and he certainly did. 17,000 dollars lost over a few hours.

Anyway, it is a quick read. Pretty unremarkable story. I read it on the plane to pass time. The money spent on this book would be better spent at your local casino. Hang out by the cash machine. Wait for some sad sack to pull out his last 20.00... buy him a drink and listen to his story!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A story of loss
Review: Double Down is a terrific book about loss. Frederick and Steve Barthelme are brothers who moved to Mississippi to become college professors. They come from a very close knit family, and when it is unwoven from the death of their Mother and Father, a gambling addiction is triggered. Steve and Frederick become regulars at The Grand, a local casino, and they start going at least once a week and spending the whole night there all the way into early morning. After blowing all of their inheritance from their parents, they are acussed of cheating. They were indicted and charged with a felony, and forever kicked out of their favorite casino. This didn't stop their gambling addiction, however it did slow it down. They make fewer trips, to another casino and are less intense gamblers.

The book was well written and for the most part it kept my attention. Some parts they seemed to ramble off about their parents and family, and it gets slow. The accounts of their gambling binges keep you wanting more. They know they should stop, but keep throwing their money in anyway. I recommend this to everyone who is intrested in gambling.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Double Down
Review: Double Down, a book about two brothers who discover the world of gambling, has the suspense and drama needed for a good gambling story. The two brothers, who happen to be respectable college professors, move down South to Mississippi to be around their parents. The family, which has drifted apart through the years, has come together for their parent's final years. Soon after their dad die's, the inheritance money starts burning a hole in the brother's pockets. Riverboat gambling puts out the fire. The wild ride lasts for two years, until the Casino accuses them of cheating. Through it all, the brother's learn about themselves, family, and why people do the things they do.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read!!!
Review: Excellent! A wonderfully entertaining story, beautifully told. The only problem, I wish it had gone another 100 pages! This is one of those stories you wish someone would develop into a screenplay for a movie!
Final thoughts: BUY THIS BOOK! You wont be disappointed!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Of Nepotism and Naivete
Review: First, the obvious: neither Barthelme brother would have cushy college-teaching jobs had not their eldest brother, Donald, been a trendy post-modernist icon. The younger brother, Steven B., has managed to publish exactly one (1) book of short stories; Rick, the larger, plumper one, has some sort of gossamer reputation among those who like trailer-park fiction. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of better writers with better qualifications who would kill and maim with gleeful abandon for jobs at Southern Mississippi -- and who would devote themselves to those jobs, and to their students, rather than run off two or three times a week to squander Daddy's money at the blackjack tables [disclaimer: the undersigned thinks she is one of those "better writers"]. That said, this slender volume does indeed fascinate: I read it straight through in five hours, and so will most readers of a literary bent. The brothers B. have in fact done me a service, one years of shrink visits and antidepressants have failed to do -- in one stroke, they have made me glad, glad, glad that I abandoned the academy, failed to obtain a Ph.D., and find myself teaching high school English thirty years after my Iowa fiction MFA. Theirs is a cautionary tale, of what may happen to smart people with minimal reality contact and few, if any, day-to-day responsibilities. The cavernous lack of common-sense knowledge they display in their forays to the Gulf Coast casinos would be inconceivable to anyone who's punched a clock or handled an insurance claim. They are actually surprised to find that casinos have a corporate identity! Gee, they thought those people were their friends ... gahh! As for the dead father they apparently despised, I felt sorry for D. Barthelme Sr. His hard work, his habits of deep thinking and attention to detail, become monstrosities in the ham-hands of his two youngest sons, who in fifty-plus years on this planet have not managed to obtain perspective one. The book is good -- the descriptions of gambling's intoxications, the minute processing of each foolish and silly and self-deluding thought as it arises, are executed with consummate skill -- and yet one can't help concluding, as the memoir shrinks down upon itself into a puddle of anticlimax, that six months or so in prison would have been good for these men, taught them a painful life-lesson or two. Crucial to an understanding of the brothers' plight is the fact that neither Barthelme bothered to have children, thus giving themselves the right to be babies forever. They are not so much perpetual adolescents as they are pre-pubescent (wife and girlfriend notwithstanding), mired forever in Fiftiesland where, if you want to be a cowboy, you just put on the hat and yell, "Bang-bang!" They are not intellectual -- or accomplished -- enough for the ivory-tower defense they so quickly assume; what they are, are second- and third-tier journeymen blessed with a famous name and a glib ability to sling the relativist Crisco. While one may end up wishing Barthelme Sr., who unlike his sons appeared to be able to distinguish right from wrong, had willed his inheritance somewhere else, this reviewer is grateful for the folly of his heirs. A job at Southern Mississippi may be gravy, but that thin gruel isn't nourishing. Real life is the real meat.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Of Nepotism and Naivete
Review: First, the obvious: neither Barthelme brother would have cushy college-teaching jobs had not their eldest brother, Donald, been a trendy post-modernist icon. The younger brother, Steven B., has managed to publish exactly one (1) book of short stories; Rick, the larger, plumper one, has some sort of gossamer reputation among those who like trailer-park fiction. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of better writers with better qualifications who would kill and maim with gleeful abandon for jobs at Southern Mississippi -- and who would devote themselves to those jobs, and to their students, rather than run off two or three times a week to squander Daddy's money at the blackjack tables [disclaimer: the undersigned thinks she is one of those "better writers"]. That said, this slender volume does indeed fascinate: I read it straight through in five hours, and so will most readers of a literary bent. The brothers B. have in fact done me a service, one years of shrink visits and antidepressants have failed to do -- in one stroke, they have made me glad, glad, glad that I abandoned the academy, failed to obtain a Ph.D., and find myself teaching high school English thirty years after my Iowa fiction MFA. Theirs is a cautionary tale, of what may happen to smart people with minimal reality contact and few, if any, day-to-day responsibilities. The cavernous lack of common-sense knowledge they display in their forays to the Gulf Coast casinos would be inconceivable to anyone who's punched a clock or handled an insurance claim. They are actually surprised to find that casinos have a corporate identity! Gee, they thought those people were their friends ... gahh! As for the dead father they apparently despised, I felt sorry for D. Barthelme Sr. His hard work, his habits of deep thinking and attention to detail, become monstrosities in the ham-hands of his two youngest sons, who in fifty-plus years on this planet have not managed to obtain perspective one. The book is good -- the descriptions of gambling's intoxications, the minute processing of each foolish and silly and self-deluding thought as it arises, are executed with consummate skill -- and yet one can't help concluding, as the memoir shrinks down upon itself into a puddle of anticlimax, that six months or so in prison would have been good for these men, taught them a painful life-lesson or two. Crucial to an understanding of the brothers' plight is the fact that neither Barthelme bothered to have children, thus giving themselves the right to be babies forever. They are not so much perpetual adolescents as they are pre-pubescent (wife and girlfriend notwithstanding), mired forever in Fiftiesland where, if you want to be a cowboy, you just put on the hat and yell, "Bang-bang!" They are not intellectual -- or accomplished -- enough for the ivory-tower defense they so quickly assume; what they are, are second- and third-tier journeymen blessed with a famous name and a glib ability to sling the relativist Crisco. While one may end up wishing Barthelme Sr., who unlike his sons appeared to be able to distinguish right from wrong, had willed his inheritance somewhere else, this reviewer is grateful for the folly of his heirs. A job at Southern Mississippi may be gravy, but that thin gruel isn't nourishing. Real life is the real meat.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The powerful addiction of gambling
Review: I have been wanting to read this book for over a year and was waiting for the paperback. I devoured it in a couple of days. This book offers the advantage of being authored by two prolific writers with an excellent command of the language. I have read some of their fiction - ironically, also dealing with gambling. The book offers a peak into their family of origin and the roots of their addiction. It takes you inside the casinos which is a great trip since no cameras are ever allowed in there. We have a real feel of the roller coaster ride of winning and losing which the brothers explain do not feel all that different. We understand that there is no way to figure out how the cards will come up - anyone who thinks he or she can do that is really hooked. How did their wife/girlfriend forgive them for blowing this small fortune? Where were they in all of this? Not all gambling addicts get involved in lawsuits but this experience offered more insight into the terror of addiction. A must read for any family or individual involved in any way with addictive behavior. Thanks for letting me share.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A double shame upon this duo
Review: The authors, two writer brothers who teach at the same university, slipped into a gambling fever, losing a quarter million dollars in the years following their aged parents' deaths. This is a lucid, compelling book: the sense of addiction, the timeless, weird feeling one gets when gambling, is brought vividly to life. There's also some measure of self-analysis: the brothers conclude that guilt and grief fueled their two-day-long losing sprees, and they appear to aptly judged themselves. They are falsely and bizarrely accused of cheating the casino (they lose thousands in the night they're accused); their description of the indictment and booking, their sudden notoriety and helplessness at the indifferent, lying corporation that is the casino, is a scarily real morality tale. On the minus side, the book does engage in a bit too much of this analysis; it gets repetitive. Also, they drop the story of their indictment too early, leaving the conclusion (dismissal of the charges on the DA's request) unexplained.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good story poorly told
Review: This book is almost totally about growing up, father, mother and the two messed up brothers. It you are into psychological stuff like that, this book rates 5 stars. On the other hand, if you want an entertaining read about gambling, this book rates 1 star. So I give it 3 stars. This book is depressing.


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