Draft:Mark Billings (author)
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Mark Billings (author) | |
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| Born | June 5, 1956 New York City, New York, US |
| Education | Statistics and Probability, Philosphy and Evolutionary Biology |
| Alma mater | State University of New York at New Paltz (BA) |
| Genre | Professional Gambling |
| Notable works |
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Mark Billings is a professional gambler and gambling author. He has played numerous casino games with an edge, including (but not limited to) blackjack, roulette and poker. Additionally he has had some recent success betting on sports. Billings is a recent nominee to the Blackjack Hall of Fame[1] – hosted at the Barona Casino.[2][3]
Billings has written for numerous professional gambling publications including Arnold Snyder’s Blackjack Forum and Henry Tamburin’s Blackjack Insider. He is the author of three books on advantage play and is well-regarded as an expert amongst professional gamblers.
In 1996 The Biased Wheel Handbook was published.[4][5] It is widely recognized by gambling professionals as a seminal work on the game of roulette[6] — specifically how to detect and exploit biased roulette wheels
In 2013 Billings appeared on the Gambling with an Edge podcast (hosted by Richard Munchkin and Bob Dancer) to discuss biased roulette wheels in general, and some of the strategies he and his teammates had developed over the course of their careers.[7]
In 2009 The Ultimate Edge was published.[8] Unlike The Biased Wheel Handbook – which was more of a “how-to” book – The Ultimate Edge was more of “what they did and how they did it.” The book follows a group of professional blackjack players through a series of exploits in the 1980s. Although all members of the team started as traditional card counters, they developed (or borrowed) and then utilized several different ways to get an edge over the house. Besides card counting, these players engaged in exploits including front-loading, spooking, shuffle tracking, slicing and dicing, computer play, and (ultimately) the Ultimate Edge. In 2013 Billings appeared on the Gambling with an Edge podcast to discuss the book.[9]
In 2020 Follow the Bouncing Ball was published.[10] This book follows a group of professional gamblers as they attempt to obtain an edge in the game of roulette. Unlike the biased number strategy discussed and developed in Billings’ first book, the strategy the players deployed in Follow the Bouncing Ball was physical prediction. In roulette the ball orbits the wheel in one direction while the numbered rotor spins in the opposite direction; the challenge was to predict where and when the ball will depart the track, figure out what part of the rotor will be beneath the ball when it does so, and then bet on those numbers. According to the book, these players were so successful their main hurdle was to somehow disguise their actual results from the casinos. In January 2021 Billings appeared yet again on Gambling with an Edge to discuss the book and various roulette exploits that took place all over the world.[11]
In October 2020 Billings was featured on the Risk of Ruin podcast along with three members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame: Richard Munchkin, Tommy Hyland and Darryl Purpose.[12] The focus of the podcast was blackjack in the early 1980s; the wheelhouse Billings memorialized in The Ultimate Edge.
After playing in well over 500 casinos on five continents in sixteen years, Billings has largely retired from professional gambling. However, he has been – and can still be – persuaded to exploit the occasional advantage play offered by casinos.[citation needed]
Books by Mark Billings[edit]
- The Biased Wheel Handbook
- The Ultimate Edge: Professional Blackjack in the 1980s
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: Silicon vs Roulette
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Blackjack Hall of Fame". Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ "Blackjack Hall of Fame".
- ^ "Blackjack Forum Online - Blackjack Hall of Fame".
- ^ "The Biased Wheel Handbook". Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ "Project Roulette". Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ For example, see the Scoblete cite in Spin Roulette Gold at Frank Scoblete (1997). Spin Roulette Gold. Bonus Books. ISBN 978-1-56625-074-0. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ The Biased Wheel Handbook, on (4 January 2013). "Gambling with an Edge". Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ The Ultimate Edge: Professional Gambling in the 1980s Booksurge, March 2009 ISBN 1439215928
- ^ The Ultimate Edge, on "Gambling with an Edge". YouTube. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ Follow the Bouncing Ball: Silicon vs Roulette November 2020 ISBN 979-8691061585
- ^ Follow the Bouncing Ball, on "Gambling with an Edge". YouTube. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ Risk of Ruin: "Risk of Ruin". Retrieved January 1, 2024.
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