While there are countless books and movies that are telling a gambling story, there are also many real-life stories that are circulating among the gamblers themselves. In this article, we will reveal our pick for the top 10 remarkable gambling stories.
Betting It All on Red
In 2004, a British gambler named Ashley Revell went to Las Vegas and bought £76,840 in chips after he sold all his possessions, including a Rolex, BMW, and a set of golf clubs, and headed straight to the roulette table.
When he arrived at the roulette table he hadn’t yet decided whether to put everything that he had on red or black. In the heat of the moment Revel choose to bet on red and the ball surprisingly landed on lucky number 7. This lucky guy bagged an impressive £153,680 from one of the craziest bets ever.
If you aren’t familiar with the rules of American Roulette, when betting on colour, there are four outcomes which are revealed in the table below.
| Outcome | Odds |
| Single Zero | 2.60% |
| Double Zero | 2.60% |
| Red | 47.37% |
| Black | 47.37% |
Can Stubbornness Pay Off?
This is a story that involves the late Sean Connery, during a 1963 trip to the St. Vincent Casino in the Italian Alps. There he placed a bet on lucky number 17 and despite losing he repeated the same bet for a second time only to lose again.
Hoping that the third bet would be a charm, Connory repeated the same bet again. Not only did the famous 007 win the bet, but he also left all of his chips on the table and placed a bet on 17 for the fourth time. Despite the odds, the ball did land on 17 once again which resulted in a €10,000 win, which in today’s money is worth around €200,000.
What Isn’t Illegal in the UK?
On March 16, 2004, at the luxurious Ritz Club in London, two Serbian men and a Hungarian woman managed to win £1.2M on the roulette table, after winning £100,000 the previous night. The trio were apparently using a computer connected mobile laser scanner in order to measure the velocity of the ball from the roulette table.
This way the trio would know which region the wheel would land on. Despite the casino staff alerting the authorities and freezing the winnings, the gang weren’t charged as they didn’t violate any law. In the end, they were released and were able to keep their winnings.
Never Too Old to Win a Massive Jackpot
This is a story about Lance Corporal Jon Heywood, an Afghan War Veteran, who deposited £30 into a casino and started playing Microgaming’s popular progressive slot game Mega Moolah. After placing a £0.25 bet for roughly 7 minutes of playing time, Jon hit the massive jackpot of £13,213,838.68.
A Prosperous Bet
When Harry Wilson, a professional Welsh football player, was just 18 months old, the famous William Hill gave his grandfather 2,500 to 1 odds that his grandson would eventually make a debut for the Wales national football team.
In the Autumn of 2013, when Harry Wilson was only 16 years old, he became the youngest player to play for the national team. His senior debut got his grandfather £125,000 for putting his faith years before he could even walk.
Moon Landing Bet
In the spring of 1964, a guy from Preston named David Threlfall convinced William Hill to give him a massive 1,000 to 1 odds that a man would land on the moon prior to January 1971. Even though this crazy sci-fi fan place a £10 bet, he obviously claimed £10,000 two years before the end date.
Today that winning is worth more than £155,000 and what’s even more interesting is William Hill has offered 500 to 1 odds that the government will admit that they’ve faked the whole thing.
Cheating or Not
After Phil Ivey won £7.7 million at the London’s Crockfords Casino while playing baccarat in 2012, the gambling establishment has refused to pay Ivey his winnings. Later on, he admitted that he was using edge-sorting, which is a system that takes advantage of irregularities in a card-playing game to help the players determine whether a card is low or high.
Many believe, as well as Phil Ivey, that edge sorting in a game of chance such as baccarat isn’t possible. So far the courts have sided with the casino, but Ivey is hoping for justice from the Supreme Court.
If you aren’t familiar with the bet types of baccarat, here’s what you can bet on:
- The Banker
- The Player
- Tie
Hitting the impossible hand
It was a Saturday afternoon when the 85-year-old Harold McDowell placed a £4 on a 6-Card Bonus on a Three Card Poker game at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City. He was stunned when he saw a royal straight flush of diamonds when the dealer laid down the cards. This hand was 1 on over 20 million odds of happening and it brought McDowell a massive £767,745.
Betting the Tournament Money on Roulette
Another insane gambling story involves one of the best U.K. poker players Jake Cody. This guy won a Poker Championship at Dusk Till Dawn Casino in Nottingham which gave him a prize of around £42,670. Instead of collecting the winnings and going home fully satisfied, he decides to bet it all on roulette. He placed everything that he’s won on Black 22, won the crazy bet and doubled his winnings.
Impossible Run in a Game of Craps
On the 23rd of May, 2009, an older lady named Patricia DeMauro went on to try her luck on the Craps table. She ended up throwing the dive for four hours and 18 minutes, in which time Patricia threw the dice 154 times and avoided hitting the 7 at all throws.
A piece of insane statistic information is that the chances of this winnings streak happening are 1 in 1.56 trillion. To make this story even crazier, Patricia never played a game of Craps before landing 154 wins in a row.
