Gambling Quotes

They had stumbled either upon a serious flaw in modern financial markets or into a great gambling run. Characteristically, they were not sure which it was. As Charlie pointed out, It's really hard to know when you're lucky and when you're smart. ~ Michael Lewis

Leftist big-government policies have been disastrous for black America just as they were in the countries that most Hispanics emigrated from. But like the gambling addict who keeps gambling the more he loses, those addicted to government entitlements keep increasing the size of the government even as their situation worsens. ~ Dennis Prager

I was re-watching 'E.T.' recently, and that scene where they're all around the pizza, bringing the pizza in, and gambling and stuff together, it's such an amazing tone, it's so rough, and nobody's really talking about anything, and it feels like you're in that room with them. ~ Colin Trevorrow

The gambling reasoner is incorrigible; if he would but take to the squaring of the circle, what a load of misery would be saved. ~ Augustus De Morgan

A young woman with long hair and a short white halter dress walks through the casino at the Riviera in Las Vegas at one in the morning. It was precisely this moment that made Play It As It Lays begin to tell itself to me. ~ Joan Didion

But basically courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable, arduous pilgrimage to some unknown destination. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is gambling, but only the gamblers know what life is. THE ~ Osho

Experiements that have been devised to inflict even mild social pain (like exclusion form a group task or betrayal by a partner in a gambling game) have demonstrated significant activation of the sinula and the anterior cingulate cortex. Emotional pain isn't just a metaphor: In terms of brain activation, it partially overlaps with physical pain. ~ David J. Linden

They did a study and found that countless men would choose gambling over love if given the chance. Even more would choose pornography over love if given the chance. We are cavemen; and it seems like that will never change. I wonder if the men they
studied have ever really been in love? I wonder how corporations will use this information to their advantage? "Hallmark cards and boxes of Fanny May chocolates will save humanity," or something to the effect. It depresses me to think about it. ~ Pete Wentz

I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Devil invented gambling. ~ Saint Augustine

Gambling in medieval France was a simple business. All you needed were some friends, a pot, and a chicken. In fact, you didn't need friends - you could do this with your enemies - but the pot and the chicken were essential. ~ Mark Forsyth

All losers exaggerate because they want you to know how bad they feel. ~ Mike Caro

What are the things that make adults depressed? The master list is too comprehensive to quantify (plane crashes, unemployment, killer bees, impotence, Stringer Bell's murder, gambling addictions, crib death, the music of Bon Iver, et al.) But whenever people talk about their personal bouts of depression in the abstract, there are two obstructions I hear more than any other. The possibility that one's life is not important, and the mundane predictability of day-to-day existence. Talk to a depressed person (particularly one who's nearing midlife), and one (or both) of these problems will inevitably be described. Since the end of World War II, every generation of American children has been endlessly conditioned to believe that their lives are supposed to be great -- a meaningful life is not just possible, but required. Part of the reason forward-thinking media networks like Twitter succeed is because people want to believe that every immaterial thing they do is pertinent by default; it's interesting because it happened to them, which translates as interesting to all. At the same time, we concede that a compelling life is supposed to be spontaneous and unpredictable-- any artistic depiction of someone who does the same thing every day portrays that character as tragically imprisoned (January Jones on Mad Men, Ron Livingston in Office Space, the lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby," all novels set in affluent suburbs, pretty much every project Sam Mendes has ever conceived, etc.) If you know ~ Chuck Klosterman

Of all mechanics, of all servile handycrafts-men, a gamester is the vilest. But yet, as many of the quality are of the profession, he is admitted amongst the politest company. ~ John Gay

Our society's almost doctrinal emphasis upon deductive reasoning, convergent thinking and selective retention perversely excludes divergent thinking, approximation and, importantly, guessing. If we are truly to understand the adolescent mind and develop effective ways to minimize the effects of risk-taking behaviour, we really need to understand these processes and engage with them. There is no logic involved with drug-taking and gambling. Adults can learn, too; understanding these mechanisms will also allow us to encourage creativity and value the spontaneity so characteristic of the adolescent mind. ~ Tony Little

She was dangerous. I'd heard the rumors, that she had a history as a wild woman, that she'd been married to a gambler, maybe even been one herself, that her past was scandalous at best. But who was I to judge? My past was littered with scandal. ~ Margaret Madigan

You should not have kissed me," she replied breathlessly.
"I do a lot of things I shouldn't. It does not mean I won't do them again. ~ Amy Sandas

vellum, and blotted it. "Why not just shred it since you've won?" Chloe asked, a little miffed that the bet would linger on. "We want to destroy them - or reveal them - all at the same time." He took Chloe's hands in his and faced her. "We were gambling with the most important of our possessions: our hearts. ~ Nancy Herkness

7. The Law of Balance in Life. It is also the case with human affairs. Social positions high or low, occupations spiritual or temporal, work rough or gentle, education perfect or imperfect, circumstances needy or opulent, each has its own advantage as well as disadvantage. The higher the position the graver the responsibilities, the lower the rank the lighter the obligation. The director of a large bank can never be so careless as his errand-boy who may stop on the street to throw a stone at a sparrow; nor can the manager of a large plantation have as good a time on a rainy day as his day-labourers who spend it in gambling. The accumulation of wealth is always accompanied by its evils; no Rothschild nor Rockefeller can be happier than a poor pedlar. A mother of many children may be troubled by her noisy little ones and envy her sterile friend, who in turn may complain of her loneliness; but if they balance what they gain with what they lose, they will find the both sides are equal. ~ Kaiten Nukariya

As a poodle may have his hair cut long or his hair cut short, as he may be trimmed with pink ribbons or with blue ribbons, yet he remains the same old poodle, so capitalism may be trimmed with factory laws, tenement laws, divorce laws and gambling laws, but it remains the same old capitalism. These "humanitarian parts" are only trimming the poodle. Socialism, one and inseparable with its "antirent and anticapital parts," means to get rid of the poodle. ~ Daniel De Leon

Personally I don't think day traders are speculating, because traditional speculation requires some market knowledge. They are, instead, gambling, which doesn't. ~ Arthur Levitt Jr

I am not one of the people who believe that the main reason why a chap becomes a bookmaker is because he is too scared to steal and too heavy to become a jockey. ~ Noel Whitcomb

A man who wouldn't cheat for a poke don't want one bad enough.
Augustus "Gus" McCrae ~ Larry McMurtry

Defeat in itself was part and parcel of the great gambling game of politics. A man who could not accept it and try again was not of the stuff of which leaders are made. ~ Agnes Sligh Turnbull

The Pakistani film International Gorillay (International guerillas), produced by Sajjad Gul, told the story of a group of local heroes - of the type that would, in the language of a later age, come to be known as jihadis, or terrorists - who vowed to find and kill an author called "Salman Rushdie" . The quest for "Rushdie" formed the main action of the film and "his" death was the film's version of happy ending.

"Rushdie" himself was depicted as a drunk, constantly swigging from a bottle, and a sadist. He lived in what looked very like a palace on what looked very like an island in the Philippines (clearly all novelists had second homes of this kind), being protected by what looked very like the Israeli Army (this presumably being a service offered by Israel to all novelists), and he was plotting the overthrow of Pakistan by the fiendish means of opening chains of discotheques and gambling dens across that pure and virtuous land, a perfidious notion for which, as the British Muslim "leader" Iqbal Sacranie might have said, death was too light a punishment. "Rushdie" was dressed exclusively in a series of hideously coloured safari suits - vermilion safari suits, aubergine safari suits, cerise safari suits - and the camera, whenever it fell upon the figure of this vile personage, invariably started at his feet and then panned [sic] with slow menace up to his face. So the safari suits got a lot of screen time, and when he saw a videotape of the film the fashion insult ~ Salman Rushdie

The last great escape. I was done gambling, done betting on a ship that would never come in. I would cash in my chips while I was ahead. I didn't want to suffer the growing old, didn't want to wait until my memory went. It was all so tiresome. I would just go out in a blaze of glory before the parasites of sadness got at me and made me bitter. After that's the American way: take your own life before everything else takes it from you. ~ Brian James

You cannot get anything out of nature or from God by gambling; only out of your neighbor. ~ John Ruskin

The national debt has given rise to joint stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage , in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy . ~ Karl Marx

You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives. ~ Jose Saramago

Maybe the difference between first marriage and second marriage is that the second time at least you know you are gambling. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I smoked one too many cigarettes-
I heard one too many lies-
Gambled on too many bets-
And lost it all to this life. ~ Mike Skinner

Lady Esmeralda's background was no less interesting than herself; it was a colourful picture of luxury and squalor. Armies of servants thronged the great houses; coaches rumbled up to the doors. Huge meals were eaten at tables laden with silver and lit by candles; there was drinking and gambling and duelling. Highwaymen frequented lonely roads and footpads lurked in the streets. Thieves were hanged and crowds gathered to see the grisly entertainment. The picture of life in those far-off days became so real and clear that I felt as if I had lived in them myself. It was almost as if I remembered them. Sometimes I returned to them in my dreams (which was not always enjoyable) and occasionally I found myself ~ D.E. Stevenson

As long as there is a lottery, we the people of the United States must believe in getting something for nothing. ~ Fay Faron

They are the new breed of slot machine-colorful, fancy, exciting, wonderful ... and deadly. ~ Frank Scoblete

Whilst in the process of losing all his money, Cardano noticed that his opponent had marked the cards. Whereupon he leapt up, slashed his opponent across the face with his dagger and grabbed the money. Outwitting his host's spear-wielding servants, he fled into the night-shrouded maze of the streets, eventually falling into a canal. [Footnote: It is interesting to note that Cardano may well have been rector of the University of Padua at the time.] ~ Paul Strathern

One starts gambling for a joke, out of curiosity, as a little challenge to fortune. One goes on, pricked to the quick by delusions, excited by vague desires that grow. Woe to you if you win anything - an AMBO, a small TERNO! It is all up with you, for your chance of winning seems certain ... It is the devil's money going back to hell. ~ Matilde Serao

If a magician makes a mistake, it's sometimes forgiven by the audience. If a gambling cheat makes a mistake, they will almost certainly lose their lives - and probably in a horrible manner. ~ Steve Truglia

If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives. ~ Freeman Dyson

I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my head and cock it.
I think of my Grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I'm already hurting. I'm not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America. ~ Kiese Laymon

Beyond the table, there is an altar, with candles lit for Billie Holiday and Willa Carter and Hypatia and Patsy Cline. Next to it, an old podium that once held a Bible, on which we have repurposed an old chemistry handbook as the Book of Lilith. In its pages is our own liturgical calendar: Saint Clementine and All Wayfarers; Saints Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt, observed in the summer with blueberries to symbolize the sapphire ring; the Vigil of Saint Juliette, complete with mints and dark chocolate; Feast of the Poets, during which Mary Oliver is recited over beds of lettuce, Kay Ryan over a dish of vinegar and oil, Audre Lorde over cucumbers, Elizabeth Bishop over some carrots; The Exaltation of Patricia Highsmith, celebrated with escargots boiling in butter and garlic and cliffhangers recited by an autumn fire; the Ascension of Frida Khalo with self-portraits and costumes; the Presentation of Shirley Jackson, a winter holiday started at dawn and ended at dusk with a gambling game played with lost milk teeth and stones. Some of them with their own books; the major and minor arcana of our little religion. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

Everything's a gamble, love most of all. ~ Tess Gerritsen

If a man who can't count finds a four leaf clover, is he lucky? ~ Stanislaw Lem

The world's biggest lottery prize is not money, its life. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home. ~ John Hay

Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional business and retail lending activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets. This was one aspect of modern financial liberalisation that had dire consequences. ~ Vince Cable

There is a respectable body of economic thought that holds that casino gambling is actually economically regressive to a state and a community. ~ Mario Cuomo

We certainly noted that when given the opportunity, women handle money more efficiently. They have long term vision, they manage money more carefully. Men are more callous with money. Their first reflex is to blow it by getting drunk in a pub, or on prostitutes or gambling. Women, on the other hand, are endowed with a tremendous sense of self-sacrifice and try to get the best out of the money, for their children, but also for their husbands. ~ Muhammad Yunus

The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticement to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. Bosch felt the same attraction that all the other grinders felt tug at them. Las Vegas was like one of the hookers on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even happily married men at least glanced their way, if only for a second, just to get an idea what was out there, maybe give them something to think about. Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town. ~ Michael Connelly

Hold'em is to stud what chess is to checkers. ~ Johnny Moss

Gambling rules doesn't work in nuclear war - everyone become looser. ~ Amit Ray

Women are like that nowadays, never happy unless they're dancing or gambling. ~ Agatha Christie

The first thing he noticed was that Las Vegas seemed to have invented a new school of functional architecture, 'The Gilded Mousetrap School' he thought it might be called, whose main purpose was to channel the customer-mouse into the central gambling trap whether he wanted the cheese or not. ~ Ian Fleming

Inner courtyard. Dr. Xia tolerated Yu-wu's rowdy parties without demur, even though his sect, the Society of Reason, forbade gambling and drinking. My mother was puzzled, but put it down to her stepfather's tolerant nature. It was only years later when she thought back that she felt certain that Dr. Xia had known, or guessed, Yu-wu's real identity. When my mother heard that her cousin Hu had been killed by the Kuomintang she approached Yu-wu about working for the Communists. He turned ~ Jung Chang

Where have you been?" I asked weakly. A few minutes ago I would have rather died than questioned him. Let him know I care. But I'm too sick to be strong, kick ass Rayne at the moment.
"Vegas" he says.
I raise an eyebrows. "Uh, okay. Win anything?" I can't believe he was off gambling as I lay dying. I mean, I know poker is hot and all, but couldn't he have waited a couple of days for that straight flush?
"I got what I went for, if that's what you mean."
"What, a lap dance?"
He chuckes. "Even sick, you're still funny, Rayne. ~ Mari Mancusi

I have to confess that I had gambled on my soul and lost it with heroic insouciance and lightness of touch. The soul is so impalpable, so often useless, and sometimes such a nuisance, that I felt no more emotion on losing it than if, on a stroll, I had mislaid my visiting card. ~ Charles Baudelaire

It's one thing to ask your bank manager for an overdraft to buy 500 begonias for the borders in Haslemere, but quite another to seek financial succour to avail oneself of the 5-2 they're offering on lie de Bourbon for the St Leger. ~ Jeffrey Bernard

The man, his feet tip-tapping softly on the stairs, hated it. He avoided the Index like a gambling addict avoids the tic-tac-tac of the dice table; but, like an addict, he was always, always aware of it: of the pull of the Books, and the darkness, and the silence. ~ F.D. Lee

You don't have any control over anyone's feelings.

You can't make your parents feel proud of you.
You can't make anyone like you.
You can't make anyone love you.

You can make it easier for them, by sacrificing your time and energy, but you cannot MAKE THEM, you can only make it easier for them - and yet again, what have you gained? Nothing. You're gambling. Putting trust coins into a slot machine hoping that love comes out. ~ M. Kirin

Gambling is not a vice, if you can afford to do it. ~ Hilary Mantel

I could have gone for gambling or sex addiction, ... But I went for obesity because of the tremendous impact it has. ~ Nora Volkow

Betting stimulates the caring glands. That is where there is so much caring at the racetrack. ~ Larry Merchant

Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

In a free enterprise system, with an honest and stable money, there is dominantly a close link between effort and productivity, on the one hand, and economic reward on the other. Inflation severs this link. Reward comes to depend less and less on effort and production, and more and more on successful gambling and luck. ~ Henry Hazlitt

Gambling is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography. It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching television. And the percentages are better than religion. ~ Mario Puzo

Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The Church has been and now is unalterably opposed to gambling in any form whatever. It is opposed to any game of chance, occupation, or so-called business, which takes money from the person who may be possessed of it without giving value received in return. It is opposed to all practices the tendency of which is to encourage the spirit of reckless speculation, and particularly to that which tends to degrade or weaken the high moral standard which the members of the Church, and our community at large, have always maintained ~ Heber J. Grant

Take out all but one bullet and it was Russian Roulette. In Mexican Roulette, as he'd heard it defined, you took out only one. In Drunk Mexican Roulette you didn't take out any. ~ James Carlos Blake

Money can buy you anything. It can buy you casinos and developments and the gambling debts of weaker men. It can buy you lawyers and police. And, if you're the sort of man who can buy another man's son, money can buy you your very own type of justice. ~ Cari Waites

Uncertainty doesn't make life worth living, quite, but it does make striving and gambling worth attempting. ~ Walter Kirn

In those days I had various strong inclinations, for wine, gambling and cockfighting, and the society of gypsies, together with a passion for theological discussion which I had inherited from my father himself-all of which my father thought I had better rid myself of before I married. ~ Isak Dinesen

Everyone except gamblers knows that gambling never pays ... Losing, like winning, only increased his determination to play. ~ Firoozeh Dumas

A sure thing is no fun. ~ Leonard Marx

Every player eventually loses all their money. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

My problem is that my body acts before my brain thinks ... it sometimes brings me huge trouble, or also huge success. recently, my body and brain got come to an agreement. it may be far better to live this gambling life than living in boring average ... they at least make my art more interesting ~ Hiroko Sakai

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose. ~ Baltasar Gracian

the only things that came from the practice were foolhardy acts, ill-advised liaisons, and gambling debts. ~ Amor Towles

You know, there's a 12 step program for gambling. You should look into that.
Twelve steps. Coyote laughed. I'll bet I can do it in six. ~ Christopher Moore

The outside wold pressures you into a mold, but if you don't accept that - you gamble with life. Call it gambling. ~ Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

I used to go to Vegas and play the horses, and then I realised how ridiculous that was. There is no winning in gambling, but there is on the stock market. ~ Josh Brolin

A poor way to repay them - gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks. ~ J.K. Rowling

I have a bad gambling problem. You're not in show business for 12 years and dress like this without a bad gambling problem. ~ Artie Lange

The greatest risk is not taking any. ~ Tim Fargo

There is no gambling like politics. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Without desire, women bored me beyond all expectation, and obviously I bored them too. No more gambling and no more theater - I was probably in the realm of truth. But truth, cher ami, is a colossal bore ~ Albert Camus

Then Childermass related to Mr Norrell what he had discovered about Drawlight: how he belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of expensive and fashionable clothes; how they pass their lives in ostentatious idleness, gambling and drinking to excess and spending months at a time in Brighton and other fashionable watering places; how in recent years this breed seemed to have reached a sort of perfection in Christopher Drawlight. Even his dearest friends would have admitted that he possessed not a single good quality. ~ Susanna Clarke

You cheated!"
He looked at her, wide-eyed with feigned outrage. "I beg your pardon. If you were a man, I would call you out for that accusation."
"And I assure you, my lord, that I would ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness."
"Are you quoting the Bible to me?"
"Indeed," she said primly, the portrait of piousness.
"While gambling."
"What better location to attempt to reform one such as you? ~ Sarah MacLean

It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. ~ Canada Bill Jones

As words are not the things we speak about, and structure is the only link between them, structure becomes the only content of knowledge. If we gamble on verbal structures that have no observable empirical structures, such gambling can never give us any structural information about the world. Therefore such verbal structures are structurally obsolete, and if we believe in them, they induce delusions or other semantic disturbances. ~ Alfred Korzybski

European lotteries are the tax on fools. ~ Camillo Benso, Count Of Cavour

Gambling to me is what a telephone pole might be to a groundhog. He sees that it's there but doesn't for the life of him understand why. ~ David Sedaris

Historically, the stock market is like a gambling casino with the odds in your favor. Over the long pull, stocks are given something like nine and a half to ten percent compounded per year. The banks have probably given you something in the order of four to five. ~ Burton Malkiel

For a permanent solution to easing tension and soothe the rough waters of the world that cause people to go to drugs, drinking, gambling, pornography, overeating, or anything that will give them some temporary relief, you can't beat the support and encouragement of a friend. ~ Jonathan Anthony Burkett

Suckers have no business with money anyway. ~ Canada Bill Jones

Nevada has a very dynamic economy, with gambling being the number-one industry, followed closely by blood donorship. ~ Dave Barry

If you ever go to Las Vegas, and you will, just go for a few days. I was there recently for seven days, seven days in Vegas. After I blew all my money on gambling and prostitution, I had six days to kill. ~ Doug Benson

You don't gamble to win. You gamble so you can gamble the next day. ~ Bert Ambrose

Gambling, beer and football filled the horizons of their minds. ~ George Orwell

So much of the theatrical can leave you with a yearning for the real. The real is suddenly and starkly there right at the city's edge and extends for thousands of square miles of desert and mountain and canyon with which human beings can do almost nothing profitable other than to leave it be and just look at it. ~ Timothy O'Grady

It was clearly the Native American curse on the white man in action. After taking their land and converting everything that was holy and good into money, the white man became aged and foolish and then gambled all that money away at Native American casinos. The power of this magic was indisputable and in evidence all around me. Senior citizens chain smoked and dumped money into the machines, staring with eyes that only reacted to the prospect of making a buck from risk and self-destruction. Especially if this were enhanced by the notion of a fate that had their interests in mind in a way loosely connected to their Christian God who usually took their side in racial relations, if history were to be a judge. ~ Carl-John X. Veraja

The greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all. ~ Gerolamo Cardano