Tony Valentine

Tony Valentine is a retired Atlantic City cop and a master hunter of casino cheats, or "grifters." He has the talent to spot cheats over a casino's surveillance cameras from the moment they come off the street and begin to take a part in the action. Valentine IDs his prey and moves in for the kill.

For ex-cop Tony Valentine, life in balmy Florida provides little R&R. In fact, he's in demand now more than ever. Armed with a special grift sense, Valentine can spot card cheats and even bigger game whose sole purpose on earth is to relieve a casino of its cash. But when his son, who was going to card-counting school, goes missing, Valentine jets to Las Vegas. Once in town, he is pressed into service, and lands inside a treacherous game with higher stakes than he has ever encountered before.

Hard-boiled ex-cop Tony Valentine has a new profession: spotting casino cheats and exposing a casino's flaws to the owners. Now he must unravel the mystery of an amateur player impossibly raking in the dough on blackjack. However, his investigation stirs up a hornet's nest worth of problems.

When the Las Vegas's Riverboat Casino starts to burn down, bald, overweight Ricky Smith nosedives five floors into the pool. After this death-defying jump, Smith, a one-time loser, is miraculously transformed into a major-player winner. Battered and drenched, walking across the street to another casino, he begins a million-dollar winning streak at the tables.

Tony Valentine made his living and his name as a cop in Atlantic City, and is now known worldwide for his ability to spot the kinds of scams, grifts, and rip-offs that cost casinos billions every year. A man with a biting wit who drives a '92 Honda, Tony is low-profile, old-school, and has seen it all, until he meets the luckiest man on earth.