author
John Philip Quinn
b. 1846
A onetime professional gambler turned outspoken reformer, this American writer pulled back the curtain on crooked gaming houses and the damage gambling could do. His books mix autobiography, warning, and vivid detail from a world he knew firsthand.
1 Audiobook
Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers
by John Philip Quinn
About the author
John Philip Quinn was an American author and lecturer best known for writing about gambling from the inside out. Catalog and ebook records identify him as a writer born in 1846, and his most famous work, Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers, presents itself as both a personal account and a broad critique of gambling culture.
Quinn wrote with the authority of experience. In Fools of Fortune, he described the tricks, frauds, and habits of professional gamblers in order to warn readers rather than entertain them. Later records and book listings also describe him as a reformed gambler and public speaker, which fits the strongly cautionary tone of his work.
He remains of interest today mainly for the historical window his writing gives into American gambling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His books are valued not just as moral arguments, but as detailed firsthand documents about games, scams, and the social world built around them.