So I think I want to build a repertoire around gambling and casino like effects. (like tricks related to card playing and casinos and things like that.)

So what would be a good place to start?

Also, I posted this in the Advice section. How it ended up in Off-Topic...I have no idea.

I moved it to Advice with a shadow post in Off Topic

Darwin Ortiz from what I was reading seemed to be pretty big on gambling routines. Might want to check some of his material.

-ArchAngel_G

If you want to get into Gambling magic I strongly suggest you get Jason England's "Foundations." It only teaches 8 moves and it does not teach many actual demos but he goes into each of those moves with incredible detail. $50.00 may seem kind of steep to learn 8 moves but trust me, I futzed around with gambling magic for a long time and it wasn't till I got this DVD that I kind of had my "breakthrough" moment and started to progress. http://www.theory11.com/tricks/foundations.php

If you want to go on the cheep you should get the book, "Expert At The Card Table," by S.W.Erdnase. Anyone interested in gambling magic will need to spend some time studieing this book. Heck anyone serious about card magic will need to study this book. Anyways, Dover copies sell for pretty cheap but you can start reading it free from this site: http://geniimagazine.com/erdnase/
Password is Erdnase if you didn't already guess.

Once you get started with those two resources you can really start exploring the other stuff out there. Damien Nieman(Director of the movie "Shade") put out "Fast Company." This is another excellent resource. The detail of instruction on specific moves is less than what you get from "Foundations" but it is still pretty good and this DVD set includes a full disk of routines. http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S10103

If you decide you want to know just about every knuckle busting card sleight known to man you may want to get Allen Ackerman's "Advanced Card Control Series." Ackerman doesn't go into great depth on the moves taught which is okay once you know the basics. He basically teaches every variation of about every move ever conceived(up to the taping of the videos.) It can be a useful as a reference because different people with different hand sizes, different styles, may take to different variations of moves better than others(ie. I just can't manage to control the Erdnase bottom so I used a variation of a mechanics bottom.) Scroll down this link and all 8 of the DVDs should pop up. http://www.penguinmagic.com/search.php? ... l+Ackerman

When you get past this stuff then you may want to consider investigating the "holy trinity" of gambling experts(at least the ones still alive) Steve Forte, Darwin Ortiz, and Richard Turner. Just do a search for any of those guys and you should find plenty of DVDs to choose from.

Hope that helps! Welcome to the club!

Thanks Paddy.


I can't thank you enough sir. This is the type of stuff I have been wanting to learn for so long. Especially the McMillan switch (didn't know it was called that.)


Thanks so much. I'm definitely going to check this out.


Again, thank you. Shade just happens to be one of my favorite movies, so that definitely makes this more appealing to me. I will definitely check it out.


Thanks. lol, I can't say it enough. I don't think I'll jump right into this, though, once I master (or at least get good at what's taught in Foundations, I'll move onto this.)


Oh it helps more than you know! (or maybe not, but it helps a lot!)

i like up the ante it looks really cool.

No problem Flappy. Once you get the resources your after feel free to post if you get "hung up" on anything. I just got into Gambling Demos about a year ago(after many years of more traditional card magic) so many of the pitfalls are still fresh in my mind.

Cheers