5. Professional Blackjack, by Stanford Wong – From Stanford Wong's website, www.bj21.com: "Professional Blackjack is 350 pages of card-counting advice for beginners to experts. It presents the high-low and the halves. The high-low is the best combination of simplicity and power, and probably is the most popular system used by card counters. Halves is a level-3 system that yields almost perfect estimates of your advantage, information you need to determine your optimal bet size."

4. Blackbelt in Blackjack, by Arnold Snyder – From Arnold Snyder’s website, www.blackjackforumonline.com: "The best book for players beginning their blackjack careers. Provides three powerful counting systems (from easiest to pro), full accounts of modern casino conditions and surveillance practices, a detailed discussion of bankroll and bet-sizing, and advanced play techniques. Exceptional because of its insider insights and pointed stories of the successes and mistakes of pros"

3. The Pro's Guide to Spanish 21 and Australian Pontoon, by Katarina Walker – From www.lulu.com: "The best-kept secret in the international pro gaming scene is finally out: Spanish 21, and its Australian counterpart, Pontoon, is even more beatable than Blackjack. The Pro's Guide to Spanish 21 will teach you how to play optimally, apply proven Blackjack card-counting techniques to Spanish 21, and do better than you ever did playing Blackjack. Topics covered include: basic strategy for 15+ rule variations, house edge, EOR, standard deviation, the Basic Hi-Lo counting system, optimal betting, indices, money management, camouflage, finding the best games, and much, much more."

2. Beat the Dealer, by Edward O. Thorp – Published in 1962, Beat the Dealer is considered to be a classic – a groundbreaking work in blackjack basic strategy and card counting.

1. Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich - This book is considered to be a fictional account based on a true story, on which the move, 21, was based. From the back cover: "Robin Hood meets the rat pack when the best and the brightest of M.I.T.'s math students and engineers take up blackjack under the guidance of an eccentric mastermind. Their small blackjack club develops from an experiment in counting cards on M.I.T.'s campus into a ring of card savants with a system for playing large and winning big. In less than two years they take some of the world’s most sophisticated casinos for more than three million dollars. But their success also brings with it the formidable ire of casino owners and launches them into the seedy underworld of corporate Vegas with its private investigators and other violent heavies. Filled with tense action, high stakes, and incredibly close calls, Bringing Down the House is a nail-biting read that chronicles a real-life Ocean’s Eleven. It's one story that Vegas does not want you to read.