John Grochowski
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Grochowski (born c. 1952) is a gambling columnist and author. His weekly newspaper column began at the Chicago Sun-Times and is now syndicated nationally. He published his first gambling book in 1996 entitled Gaming: Cruising the Casino with a Syndicated Gambling Columnist. He then began a series of books all aimed at answering questions about a specific topic or game. The 1998 book The Casino Answer Book explained the basics of casino gambling for beginners. His other books include The Video Poker Answer Book 2000, The Craps Answer Book 2001 and The Slot Machine Answer Book 2005.
The author also contributes articles to magazines and internet publications. His articles can be found online at the Casino City Times website and in a number of magazines including Southern Gaming and Entertainment and Midwest Gaming & Travel magazines for players. He also writes for a number of industry publications, including International Gaming and Wagering Business, Slot Manager and Indian Gaming Business magazines.
In recent years, the author also has gone into broadcasting, with one-minute "Beat the Odds tips" on all-news WBBM-AM (780) and a one-hour Casino Answer Man talk show on WCKG-FM (105.9), both in Chicago. The WBBM spots first aired in May 2005, and continued to be a regular feature as of April 2008. The WCKG-FM talk show made its debut in February of 2006, and last aired Oct. 28, 2007. It was canceled when the station changed formats.
Grochowski has been featured on three Travel Channel specials, Las Vegas: What Would You Do If ..., Vegas: What's New 2005 and Vegas: What's New 2006. He also had a moment in the limelight as a game show contestant, winning $125,000 in July 2000 on ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with Regis Philbin.
Grochowski was born in 1952 in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in the western Chicago suburb of Lisle. The eldest of five children, he graduated from Lisle High School in 1970, then attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. While at the University of Illinois, Grochowski joined the staff of the student newspaper, the Daily Illini, and served one year as its sports editor.
He then pursued a newspaper career, first working as a sportswriter for the Suburban Trib in Hinsdale, Illinois. From there, he moved to the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before returning to Illinois as a sports copy editor for the News-Sun in Waukegan, Illinois. In 1982, he was hired as a copy editor by the Chicago Sun-Times, and it was there he started writing about casinos and casino games with a weekly column starting in 1994.
