The Wit’s Guide to Gambling

Or, the cruel green felt

Les Joueurs Font Une Grande Flush, James Ensor, 1902

The rules of gambling are simple: You have to know when to hold, know when to fold, and know when to eat the mold. You see, sometimes it’s good for you, like penicillin and Roquefort, and sometimes it’s bad, like the black stuff that grows on tile grout in the shower. By following this rule of thumb, Kenny Rogers lived a long life filled with fame, fortune, and succulent roast chicken.

“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”
— Damon Runyon

For the non-gambler, it’s hard to see the thrill. It seems to have less in common with the classic hedonistic addictions — drink, drugs, sex, cream cheese — than it does with investing very quickly and very poorly. And yet somehow, dumping money onto a roulette table is the exact emotional opposite of being sold mutual funds.

“The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.”
— Ambrose Bierce

Lord Byron nailed it as usual when he wrote that “the great object of life is sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain. It is this ‘craving void’ which drives us to gaming.” And this was a man who died 135 years before Las Vegas invented the 50-cent shrimp cocktail.

“You have the same chance of winning a lottery whether you play or not.”
— Fran Lebowitz

Norm Macdonald describes his compulsion to watch “those red dice doing their wild dance and freezing time before finding the cruel green felt” in Based on a True Story, his meta memoir. “Gambling addiction is a disease, for sure, but it’s the only disease that can make you very wealthy,” he writes. “Osteoarthritis ain’t gonna make you dime one, friend.” 

All he wants, he claims, is to “buy a ranch in Montana, and sit on my porch all day, and drink Wild Turkey 101, and watch other men work for me.” But first he has to pay off a million dollars in debt incurred to a fat man with artificial hair.

“Gambling: The surest way to get nothing for something.”
— Wilson Mizner

Maybe you’re never more alive than when you’re balanced on the edge of a playing card, teetering between a vague paradise you don’t actually want and the nullity of losing it all. Or as the Germans mutter to one another, lustprinzip vs todestrieb. Heads, we’re moving to Montana! Tails, annihilation! Even money on which destination has the better shrimp cocktail.

“The urge to gamble is so universal, and its practice is so pleasurable, that I assume it must be evil.”
— Heywood Broun

It’s been argued that all of life is a gamble, and that we perpetually underestimate the role of luck in everything we do. By this logic, gambling is just a distillation of the randomness of life. Except it’s a certainty that everyone dies and the house always wins, so this argument isn’t quite as convincing as the fact that Shania Twain is in residence at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino until the end of December! 

“Horse sense is good judgment which keeps horses from betting on people.”
— W.C. Fields

Is it so wrong to bet on the horses, a son asks his father. The way I do it is, the father replies. He says he lost because he picked a nag who just ran out of curiosity — he wanted to see if the other horses also had tails.

“If you remove the gambling, where is the fun in watching a load of horses being whipped by midgets?”
— Ian O’Doherty

Every gambler should be as lucky as Chico Marx, who had the rest of the Marx Brothers to save him from what Groucho called “his ardor for the pool cue and the galloping dominos.” When asked how much money he’d lost, Chico said to look at how much his brother Harpo had, and that was the number. Chico could “smell money through wallpaper,” Harpo said, and that skill helped him negotiate revenue-sharing deals on behalf of his brothers. But it also forced his family to put him on a fixed income at the end of his life, knowing as they did that “if there was no action around, he would play solitaire — and bet against himself.”

“I like to play blackjack. I’m not addicted to gambling. I’m addicted to sitting in a semi-circle.”
— Mitch Hedberg

Which leads to the old joke about the three gentlemen of different religions arrested for playing penny-a-point pinochle. The first claims he doesn’t even know how to play. The second denies he was even there.  The judge asks the third man if he too claims innocence. “Of course, your honour! Would I be playing pinochle for money by myself?”

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Let me deal you these cards

It’s a safe bet that if you send me any amount of money, I’ll send you a gorgeous stack of Riposte Cards in the mail. Plus a wallet-sized list of Witty Remarks for Every Occasion! But wait, you ask: What if I live in Australia? To which I say: Fair dinkum! Of my 63 paid subscribers, two live in the land down under. Your house (or apartment or condo or yurt) always wins!

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Quote Vote

“Time spent in a casino is time given to death, a foretaste of the hour when one’s flash will be diverted to the purposes of the worm and not the will.”
— Rebecca West

By the way, they call it gaming now, not gambling. So maybe let’s do another game next week? Perhaps deer, bison, or wild boar? I asked the ranks of Valued Paid Subscribers Who Are Currently Eating Honey Nut Cheerios in My Kitchen, and Craig Courtice said crosswords. What do you say? 

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Issue No. 269 of Get Wit Quick puts all its chips into the dip.  It’s a safe bet that my book was called Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. Tapping the ❤️  below is the Substack equivalent of blowing on the dice: It doesn’t do anything — but at least it’s doing something.