The popular image of the bookie is one of a suited individual standing at the track side or operating from smoke-filled rooms and dingy gambling shops. The reality of today is very different, however, involving executives in the boardrooms of multi-million-pound leisure industries. They take bets on anything from the 7.30 at Hackney Dog Stadium to who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury and who will walk away with the Booker Prize. This book looks at the world of gambling and the images that it portrays - showing how casinos operate and the few punters who, via mathematics and science, have developed schemes for beating the various systems. Jamie Reid is the author of Emperors of the Turf.