Richard Armstrong

God Doesn't Shoot Craps
A Divine Comedy

Talk • Q&A • Signing

In his debut novel, Richard Armstrong takes us on a roller coaster ride through the flashy, and sometimes raw, world of big-time gambling.

Junk-mail con man Danny Pelligrino figures it's just another chance to fleece a few more gullible postal customers. He's been asked to promote a supposedly fool-proof system for winning at craps called "Win By Losing". The guy who invented it was muddling around on the cutting edge of theoretical mathematics. Claims he can prove it works. Pellegrino's too jaded to care whether the system really works, but he heads to Atlantic City to try it out.

When he finds himself up $500K at craps, he realizes the system really works, but it's too late. The cat is already out of the bag. Everybody wants a piece of the action, from the mob to the feds, and the chase is on. Veering through the flashy casinos in Atlantic City to Vegas strip joints, Pellegrino can only hope that with so many people chasing him, they will trip each other up.

While this novel is a full throttle adventure, with all the expected action, it is also based on recent advances in the mathematics of chance that force us to pause and ponder how much we can understand about the secrets of the universe.



"I loved God Doesn't Shoot Craps. It's a fascinating blend of two subjects I know nothing about -- gambling and flying -- and two subjects I know quite a bit about: science and mail-order marketing. It's unique: a fast read and a riveting story combined with some rather deep philosophical thinking on the meaning of the universe, deftly plotted with lots of surprises along the way."
—Robert W. Bly, author, The Science in Science Fiction (BenBella Books, 2005)

"Cutting-edge gambling fiction, written--with humor, insight, and style--by the only author who can actually know whether God does or doesn't shoot craps."
—Deke Castleman, Senior Editor, The Las Vegas Advisor, author of Whale Hunt in the Desert.

Richard Armstrong is one the nation's leading freelance direct-mail copywriters. He is a two-time winner of that industry's annual achievement award, the Caples Award. He has published two previous non-fiction books, Leaving the Nest and The Last Hurrah: the Communications Revolution in American Politics. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and dachshund Scooter.

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