Our Books
The long-form versions of what this site does. Written by the same person who builds the calculators — which is exactly why you should know that before you buy one.
Last reviewed: July 2026
Everything on this site is free and stays free. These books exist because some things don't fit in an article — the full argument for how a casino prices a bet takes a hundred pages, not eight hundred words. If you'd rather not buy anything, the material behind both books is in the guides and the comps research, and always will be.
Neither book claims a way to beat a negative-edge game. There isn't one, and we say so on the about page and in the books themselves. What they do is show you the price before you pay it.
The House Always Does the Math
How Casinos Price Every Bet, and How to See the Cost Before You Play
Kindle on Amazon (opens in a new tab) · Paperback on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
The house does not need to predict your next bet. It only needs to know what that bet costs on average. Jake Wild learned this at his first craps table: he had heard the game offered some of the best bets in the casino, fell in love with its speed, and won while making wagers he barely understood. The fun was real. So was the hidden price.
Twelve chapters in three parts — understand the price, read the casino floor, then play with your eyes open. It is not a system and it does not claim one exists. Seeing the cost is what lets you decide how much of it you want to buy.
What's in it
- See the house edge as a price, not a prediction
- Compare blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, slots and carnival games
- Understand why smart choices can lose and costly bets can win
- Price comps and offers before they change your play
- Build a casino session around deliberate limits, pace and total exposure
Comped at Sea
A Practical Guide to Cruise Casino Offers, Free Cabins, and the Real Cost of Earning Them
Kindle on Amazon (opens in a new tab) · Paperback on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
Cruise lines give away cabins, and they are not doing it out of generosity. This book works out what an offer is worth against what it takes to earn — in coin-in, in expected loss, and in the hours it puts you in front of a machine.
It covers what each line publishes, what it doesn't, and how to price an offer yourself when the numbers aren't given to you. Most of the research behind it is on this site; the book is where it's assembled into something you can plan a sailing with.
What's in it
- Coin-in, average bet, time and theoretical loss — what the casino is actually buying
- Getting properly rated, and why the high-house-edge trap costs more than it earns
- What “complimentary” actually covers, and putting a real value on the cabin
- Comp matching, offer matching, and the fine print that changes the deal
- Choosing the cruise before you chase the offer — and when to walk away from the cycle
Why these exist
Both books came out of the same work as the site. The House Always Does the Math is the argument the house edge and RTP pages make in summary, at the length it actually takes. Comped at Sea is the research behind the comps section — the cruise programs, what each line publishes, and the arithmetic for pricing an offer — collected into something you can plan a sailing with.
Published by Wild Games Studio, LLC, which also publishes this site. We earn a royalty on every copy sold and an Amazon referral fee on top — see the full disclosure. Prices and availability are on Amazon; we don't publish them here because they change.