Playing the Odds

Book excerpt: "This collection of Hal Rothman's wide-ranging, brash, and brilliant essays on Las Vegas offers up a treasury of insights on the follies and possibilities of the New West. Confident, passionate, learned and, yes, wise, Rothman is simply one of the most important voices writing on the region today. He is also a hell of a lot of fun to read." - Virginia Scharff, professor of history and Director, Center for the Southwest, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and Women of the West chair at the Institute for the Study of the American West, Autry National Center, Los Angeles "Hal Rothman has been enlightening me, irritating me, surprising me, and making me laugh for twenty years. Reading his columns reminds me why. He has long been one of the brashest, loudest, smartest, and most original voices in the West. Not even ALS could quiet him. These columns aren't the same as talking to him, but they come close." - Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University "Hal Rothman is both the greatest Western historian of his generation and an H. L. Mencken in cowboy boots. Here is a magnificent collection of his opinion, wit, and wisdom." - Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and Buda's Wagon