Jake Jacobs grew up in Des Plaines, Illinois, close enough to hear the noirish beat in the heart of Chicago. He has done a few things to pass the time and make some money including: law clerking; computer operation and programming; pizza delivery; taxicab driving and dispatching; phone sales; video store management; casino management; acting; magazine editing; screenwriting; film production; and international consulting.

Since the early nineteen-eighties he has been a professional gambler. He played blackjack for twenty-five years, working with some of history’s most successful teams. Besides traveling the world playing blackjack he is also a top-ranked backgammon player, and is the author of two books on the game. He spent more than twenty years working with horse race betting operations, first in Hong Kong, then in Japan. Over the years he has lived in Japan, the Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore. He has spent considerable time in other parts of Asia including the Philippines, the setting for his mystery novel The Battered Butterfly. He is currently at work on the sequel to this memoir.