2021 to present: Timeline and designs of the cover art of Breaking Roulette.

https://youtu.be/OADHKbMUp1g

In creating a vision for our book, I had to create a champion for the benefit of the players – it had to be green to reflect the money everyone wants to win from the casino, but we wanted something to signify tenacity – to stay in the game and being resilient. 

And for the cover of Breaking Roulette: An Introduction to Roulette we came up with the Green Phoenix – from Egyptian lore it is a creature that is immortal and is reborn from its ashes.

 

Along with the Green Phoenix, we also introduced Thoth the Egyptian god of All Knowledge who sparks the Green Phoenix back to life on the cover of Breaking Roulette: The Book Of Numbers. The Book of Numbers is modeled after the mystic books like The Book of Life or The Book of the Dead. Thoth emphasizes the intelligence and wisdom needed to figure out the game and to know when to stop and fight another day.

I went to a friend of mine to create the original Green Phoenix design. Matt Orsman runs Mirthquake.net (Facebook) and he is a fellow Wichita State Alumni. His art is well-known in the fantasy and horror art genres. The Green Phoenix on the cover of Breaking Roulette: An In-Depth Analysis of the Game show it can burn, overcome and break the eternal spinning wheel that is the game of Roulette.

For my second set of books, I didn’t want to discard the Green Phoenix but add a new symbol for single zero game. During 2023, taking a much needed break, me and my wife took a short vacation to Paris. Touring the Louvre Museum, we came across a work of art that practically screamed Roulette.

 The Venus of Arles statue is elegant and distinctive, and I wrote the origin story of this work in Chapter 1 – The Legend of Venus. Using both mascots we created Breaking Roulette:  Advanced Tactics of Advantage Play and Breaking Eurolette: The Book of Numbers.

 

 

 

 

I wanted to unite the books for Single and Double zero Roulette. But the Amazon pricing rules won’t let me combine both eBooks without raising the prices by a factor of 4. However, I can combine the print books together and offer savings and convenience for my readers. I decided to combine them under the theme of the Lunar New Year (also known as the Chinese New Year although more than just the Chinese people celebrate it). I treat it as another celebration of life. 

It runs on a continuous 12 year cycle, so it works well with the vibes from the Green Phoenix. I originally wanted to launch it in 2023 under my own sign, the Year of the Rabbit. 

 

But there were just too many things going on from 2022-2023. The book on fun and games in the casino had to take a back seat to real life issues, so this didn’t move past the playtest phase. And besides the books, I had to focus on producing the website.

And finally, after completing the Double Zero books in 2022, and the Single Zero books in 2023, we released Breaking Roulette – 2024: The Year of the Dragon Special Edition of The Book of Numbers. The third leg of the triple threat to Roulette.