Blackjack

Any fan of the Ocean's Eleven films knows the setup: An inside man handles the cards, and a high roller rakes in the dough. For Phuong Quoc Truong, the big scam wasn't a movie script: It was his way of life.

The severity of America's gambling addiction isn't too far behind the nation's drug problem, and it's growing. In 2007, Americans lost more than $92 billion gambling, almost 10 times more than what U.S. moviegoers spent on tickets -- and about nine times what they lost 15 years earlier.

In Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would be King, a British soldier named Daniel Dravot schemes to become king of a remote area of Afghanistan. Today, a 63-year-old retired real estate developer calling himself Daniel Dravot also schemes to become king -- of the blackjack table. In what is surely...

You would think a recession that has driven Atlantic City profits down 13.2% in the last year would motivate the casinos to lower their betting minimums to attract more people and generate good will. You would be as wrong as a blackjack novice hitting on 16 with the dealer showing 5. I recently...

Update May 2009: The Las Vegas casinos, which are suffering a huge downturn in visitors, would happily welcome your attempt at our most desperate strategy to raise quick cash, gambling. Please understand that this is our #1, most desperate way to make some quick cash, and only applies in this...