Six To Five Against: A Gambler's Odyssey

By Burt Dragin

Part self-help book, part memoir, this is a cautionary tale of a lifelong struggle against what Dragin calls "the shrill call of the dice" -- from someone who has also had his moments in the card... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571431136
• ISBN13: 9781571431134
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Rdr Books
• Length: 179 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Honest and thought-provoking

Six to Five Against is a refreshing, sometimes wincingly honest look at one man's gambling. Drawing chiefly on his own experiences but supported by Dragin's investigations into the thrall that gambling holds for many, this is an open, honest, and readable story that will appeal to anyone who gambles or wants to better understand gamblers. Dragin opens the book with an interesting thought: he's got a lot in common with Steve Wynn. They were both born in the same year to gambling fathers, and both have had lifelong relationships with gambling, though Dragin admits that the billionaire casino owner has gotten rich from gambling, while he hasn't. Along the way, Dragin luckily transformed his obsession with gambling into an obsession with gamblers and research into gambling, and the result is this memoir/problem gambling overview. The short book is divided into four parts. The First, My Role Model, hinges on Dragin's father Phil, a lifelong gambler. In the second part, Gambling Demons, the focus shifts to the author's gambling travails. The third part, Profiles, is a series of quick (6 pages or so) sketches of several problem gamblers Dragin interviewed. Part four, The Last Act, is a coda of sorts, describing Phil Dragin's last years and the author's final acceptance of his problem gambling. Six to Five Against works because Dragin is able to coolly, almost dispassionately analyze himself as well as his subjects. His honesty about his gambling is refreshing, and it puts him in a league with Dostoyevsky as a writer who can bring his own gambling to bear on his writing-in Dostoyevsky's case fiction, in Dragin's memoir/creative non-fiction-and produce something both eye-opening and thought-provoking. Dragin's father's life parallels that of many men who ended up in Las Vegas one both sides of the table. Growing up in an immigrant, Yiddish and Russian-speaking household in Cleveland, he spurned hard work and sober devotion for the gambling underworld, which included Moe Dalitz's Harvard Club and an entire stratum of pool rooms, racetracks, touts, and bustouts. Calling it Runyonesque is almost an understatement. Indeed, Dragin pays homage to Damon Runyon in the book's opening pages, embracing him as a kindred spirit (his title is taken from a particularly pithy gem from Runyon's "A Nice Price"), and its easy to see how he made a strong emotional connection between his father's war stories of Cleveland's gambling scene and Runyon's memorable characters. Moving to Los Angeles, Dragin's father enjoys a bit of good luck, followed by years of hard work, frustration, and disappointment, including more than one arrest for gambling. Dragin follows in his father's footsteps, trying to balance the demands of adulthood with an unstoppable need to gamble. In the end, father and son seem to reach a rapprochement with their "gambling demon" that contains, but doesn't entirely banish, it. As a simple family story, Six to Five Against is not only touching, but transf

The fine art of winning, losing, and struggling with too much fun comes alive

Burt Dragin is a journalism professor and investigative reporter who writes about what he knows best: gambling. His own addition to the game lends a lively and fun tone to a history of gambling, the rise of casinos and big business, and insights from recovering problem gamblers. The fine art of winning, losing, and struggling with too much fun comes alive in SIX TO FIVE AGAINST: A GAMBLER'S ODYSSEY. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch