All the Way to the Bank

For your amusement, we've collected a number of gambling-related
anecdotes concerning winners and losers. Enjoy!

Time is Money

Marx brother Chico once handed a check to writer Heywood Broun to cover his gambling debts, but warned Broun not to cash the check before noon the following day.

The next day, Broun informed Marx that the check had bounced.

"Exactly when did you try to cash it?" Chico asked.

"12:10" replied Broun.

"Too late!" replied Marx.



Dunking Dough Nuts

Oil tycoon John Gates once made an $11,000 bet with the wealthy John Drake (his family established Drake University) that his bread, after dunking it in his coffee, would draw more flies than Drake's.

The bet's winner? Gates.

It later turned out that Gates had added 6 spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee. Sweet!



Betting on Baseball

In 1987, baseball fan/lottery player Robert Heuer bagged $2,250,000 playing the New York State Lottery. Heuer's winning numbers? 5, 16, 24, 27, 37, and 44, which happened not-by-chance to be his favorite players' numbers (Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, Casey Stengel & Willie McCovey).



Lose Your Shirt, Buy a Hat

Proudly sporting his new yachtsman's cap, one day Tristan Bernard ran into a buddy on Deauville's promenade. When the friend asked where he got the hat, Bernard replied that he'd bought it with the money he won at the casino the night before.

After the friend congratulated the proud winner, Bernard replied. "Yeah, but what I lost could have bought me the yacht!"



Don Johnson's Vices

When asked once how he succeeded in spending most of his millions he'd earned during the course of his career, Miami Vice star Don Johnson replied, "Some he had spent drinking, some he had lost gambling, and some he had spent on women."

"The rest," he added, "I simply pissed away."



A Horoscope To Die For

Girolamo Cardano, a 16th century gambling addict whose compulsive gambling motivated him to pioneer research into probability and chance, was also among Europe's most celebrated astrologers. In fact he once journeyed to England to cast young King Edward VI's horoscope.

With his faith firmly planted in the power of his ‘science,' Cardano publicly announced his horoscope predicting the exact time of his own death. When the big day came on September 21st, 1576, Cardano, still alive and well, killed himself to avoid embarrassment.



No Texas, No Deal

When L.A. Dodgers' former pitching star Fernando Valenzuela was negotiating his new contract, ex-Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was asked how much it was going to take to sign the Mexican?

Lasorda's reply "He wants Texas back."