The Player: Life is a Gamble

By Robert Ross

"Everything in life is a gamble. Don't regret the chance not taken."

This is the maxim of The Player, a professional gambler who rarely loses, usually breaks even and often wins big. He is the perfect paladin of the 21st century - always in the game - always gets the girl - and is always willing to risk it all.

Fate and luck in many ways determine the course of The Player's life, but it is in the bets placed, the risks taken, the choices made, where he becomes a man in control of his own destiny. His is a life filled with casino bosses, call girls, college kids, mafia dons, bag ladies, fortunetellers, thieves, kings, queens and movie stars. His is a destiny only a gambler could have.

"The Player, Life is a Gamble," is the first in a series of flash-fiction books of stories 2-3 pages in length, featuring: The Player - the consummate classy gambler. The James Bond of the casino. A man in search of action in a life on the edge, filled with risks . . . and rewards.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Ross
• Release date: Jul 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465721785

Book preview

The Player: Life is a Gamble

by

Robert Ross

Copyright 2011 by Robert Ross

Smashwords Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Introduction

1. Working Girl

2. All the World’s a Stage

3. Lady Luck

4. A Pair of Queens

5. A Band of Thieves

6. Blind Man’s Bluff

7. The Way the Ball Bounces

8. The Cabbie

9. Double Up

10. Lucky Number

11. A Little Respect

12. The Fix

13. Noises Off

14. The Tip

15. Seven Studs

16. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

17. Elvis Sightings

18. The International Language

19. The Family That Plays Together

20. The King

21. The End Game

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Every conscious act requires risk. Every conscious act requires decision. Put these two facts together and you realize that the secret to life is not to avoid gambling, but to gamble well.

—Mike Caro, Mike Caro on Gambling

INTRODUCTION

Are you a gambler? We all are. Be it choosing a college to attend, taking an alternative route to avoid a traffic jam, or buying a birthday present for your spouse, we all are betting that the choices we make will pay off for us.

Some may dispute that these are not really gambles at all. Maybe calculated risks, critical decisions, or just the usual choices required to get through a typical day in our busy lives. Not everything in life can be a gamble. If you choose to get off the freeway and take an alternate route only to find street construction that delays you even more, the worst thing that can happen is you are late to your job, or you miss your flight. So you’ll catch the next flight. If you can’t really lose much, is it really a gamble?

The same thing could be said about traditional gambling. If you are playing blackjack at a $5 table and you lose $20, then quit, big deal. Twenty dollars doesn’t change your life whether you win or lose, so where’s the gamble? You can’t control how the cards are dealt anyway or who might sit down at your table changing the deal and the outcome of all your hands. From winning to losing, or the other way around.

In many ways, fate and luck determine the course of our lives. Despite this, the only control we have over our own destinies is in the choices we make, the risks we take, the bets we place.

Tempting fate is gambling. It’s in the pursuit, the game, living on the edge of risks large and small that make the human experience exhilarating, alive with sensations, thrills, joy. We win and we lose. Sometimes it doesn’t matter and other times, it can destroy us.

I never thought of myself as much of a gambler. Joining the Navy, moving to California, getting married, making investments, starting companies, quitting jobs, raising children, making promises and taking shortcuts to avoid traffic all seemed perfectly normal to me. I have swam with sharks in the ocean, jumped out of airplanes, run with the bulls in Spain and spent quality time with mafia hit men. But laying down a $500 bet on a craps table gives me a different kind of rush. It brings forth adrenaline--the elixir of life.

The Player, Life is a Gamble is a collection of stories, quotes, insights and gambles. The Player is my hero — the suave, sophisticated worldly gambler who survives on street smarts, instinct and action. He is the perfect paladin of the 21st century — always in the game — always gets the girl — and is always willing to risk it all.

Many people assume that because I created The Player that he is my alter ego and that he is really me. Sadly, it is not the case. The Player is the man I wish I could be when I’m not wishing I were James Bond or Indiana Jones. I have created this bigger-than-life character to amuse and entertain both you and me. But in some ways, I am like The Player because I do take alternative routes off the freeway and buy lottery tickets without choosing the numbers.

In my heart, I am a gambler.

And so are you.

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You can take as much water from the ocean as you are capable of carrying, but if you don’t bother to go down to the shore with a pot, you get nothing at all.

—Annamalai Swami

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WORKING GIRL