The Gamblers

The Old West #25

by Time-Life Books

This volume in Time-Life's The Old West series examines, through text, illustrations, and photographs, the role of gambling in the American frontier. Gambling was a Western mania, and the consequences were felt in towns and families.

The book is packed with interesting anecdotes and covers the race track and boxing ring, lotteries, and steamboat racing, as well as all of the traditional card and table games.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Westerns, Historical

240 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Pat Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another of my inherited collection of Time-Life 'The Old West' series. I found this book to be interesting in a different way than most of the ones in this series. It does center on gambling in the Western U.S. during the time period promoted. But the things I learned which I found unexpected were that so much cheating was involved. It was almost the rule rather than the exception. Anyway, they go through the card games, roulette, slot machines and it's inventor, horse racing, and prize fighting. Also the locations of such contests. Of course they were areas of boom where there was lots of money. On the last two pages it became apparent that gambling was made illegal everywhere after a time, even in Nevada. But soon after, Nevada changed in order to be able to cash in on the revenue that gambling brought to the state. This was written in 1978 and the idea of gambling on reservations was not in play yet. :)

[Steven Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

One more entry in Time-Life's "Old West" series. The focus here? Gamblers! The book begins with the author noting that (Page 7): "Almost everybody gambled in the Old West." The first chapter, appropriately enough, examines gambling among Native Americans. They had been gambling centuries before Europeans arrived. They gambled at checkers after having come to know the game through Europeans; they gambled on lacrosse matches; they gambled with dice; they gambled on sleight-of-hand games.

The second chapter takes a look at another kind of gambling--on Mississippi riverboats. A picture on pages 48-49 captures the context, with riverboats docking in St. Louis. Gambling equipment is depicted on pages 57-59. Chapter 3 considers gambling in "gold-rush country." In California, gamblers descended, willing to take riches from those finding gold. As the book notes (Page 85), "So, when gold was discovered in California in 1848, gamblers throughout the country saw immediately the once-in-a-lifetime chance to perform good works, and hundreds swarmed to the West Coast." One interesting sidebar is a description of women gamblers (Page 101).

Chapter 4 looks at another side of gambling--the cheaters. Included is a discussion of some of the tricks (cards up one's sleeve, for instance). A discussion of marked cards is fun to read!

And so on.

This is an enjoyable read and provides quite a bit of information. As with other books in the series, it provides many illustrations and photos that add considerably to the work.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love all the books by Time life and this one takes readers back in time and shows the life of the gamblers who helped shape the west.

[Autumn Kearney · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gamblers is part of Time-Life The Old West series of books. It is well written and well researched like all of their books. There were white men, Indians(as they called them then) and Mexicans all gambling in different forms. It wasn’t all cards and dice, like I had expected. Interesting.

[Henry Kline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another slice of history put into pictures and written detail.

[David Grassé · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of gambling n the Old West, though I would recommend "Knights of the Green Cloth" by Robert DeArment for a more nuanced story.