All kinds of gambling stories abound, from real life gambling crime fighters to how the lottery was born. Gambling has inspired the imaginations of both gamblers and literary figures, alike.

The Gambling Professionals

Today’s modern professionals train in the tools and skills of poker and blackjack. These games are the few skill games that casinos actually allow to exist. The techniques employed are most notably those of card counting and shuffle tracking. Their colleagues are young and old, some with professions more lucrative than their card playing. Both poker and blackjack validate their business with active professional associations and well respected Halls of Fame.

Casinos and Tycoons

Without casinos, gambling might still be practiced in the smoky bars and backrooms of illegal gambling joints. Thanks to the business savvy of a few dreamy business men, there are today resort casinos like Trump Taj Mahal, The Borgata in Atlantic City and the Bellagio in Las Vegas. These resort behemoths owned by tycoons Trump, Boyd and Wynn, respectively, are all responsible for staging the most current and simultaneous face lift to the casino façade.

Literature and Gambling

Fiction and gambling, writers and gambling—at some point, they go hand-in-hand. The gambling excesses of many writers are often coupled with excesses of another kind, too. Dostoevsky is one of the most famous writers to challenge the psychology of gambling, based of course on his own legendary battle with the compulsion and ruination. Edgar Allan Poe turned to gambling to solve debt problems, only to find more and more debt, along with alcohol and drug problems.

Birth of the Lottery

The lottery game in its many forms has taken an all too familiar spot at every convenience store cash register. But the lottery has been used as a tool by governments of all kinds throughout history. Lottery games have become so available that foreign businesses are summarily scamming millions of dollars off unwary lottery players.

Gambling and Fortune Telling

The origins of gambling are intertwined with those of more spiritual and occult matters. Decks of cards have been used to foretell events, called the practice of cartomancy. Dice have been rolled to decide fates and to make political decisions and are still used by Tibetan Monks in one of their spiritual ceremonies.