Right, I won't beat about the bush on this one, but for £8.99 I thought this book was extremely light in content. In fact it took me less than 2 hours to read cover to cover and that was on top of getting interrupted every so often by my little girl.
The story focuses on the author's history of how he got into gambling (someone elses fault apparently) and how he then went on to lose pretty much everything he had and then some. I initially found an interest in reading the book as Mike is roughly the same age as me (30) and had a similar up bringing to myself. When he flunked out of university after 3 months is where those similarities ended, and he then started to spend his time and energy trying to find an edge over the casino's and bookies he was frequenting.
Unfortunately his best effort seemed to be betting on the horses picked out by the Daily Star's racing tipsters. I don't really need to detail the fact that this system didn't quite work out in the long term, and he then went on increasing his bets to the extent that he lost £7,500 in one day maxing out two credit cards.
Mr Curtis then launches into a one man crusade about how evil the bookmaking industry is and how they use underhand methods in taking every punters last penny. I'm afraid this is where the author just seems to be crying sour grapes. How does he think book makers and casinos exist and thrive? Yes, they have an edge, but no, it's not illegal and every punter walks through that door on their own two feet.
Unlike Bill Lee's book, Born to lose, there is very little detail on how he managed to kick his demons, aside from the fact that he had lost all avenue's of obtaining extra cash (through credit cards etc) and kept on getting a severe kicking from the bookies. Shame really, as the book is OK to that point, but in my opinion is finished off prematurely and without proper conclusion.
My rating: 49%
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