Dec 23, 2016 Many gambling addiction stories start out innocently enough—a trip to the casino here or there, a few good wins, then a loss or two. Then something happens. The same chemicals in the brain that cause a person to become addicted to alcohol or drugs soon start to react to the act of gambling. The best part of your second story was being down $500 for the trip, but was still worth it. I think that's why most people gamble is that rush you feel when winning.
- The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
- Greatest Stories Ever Told
- The Greatest Story Ever Told Book
- Watch The Greatest Story Ever Told
Literary critics, historians, avid readers, and even casual readers will all have different opinions on which novel is truly the “greatest book ever written.” Is it a novel with beautiful, captivating figurative language? Or one with gritty realism? A novel that has had an immense social impact? Or one that has more subtly affected the world? Here is a list of 12 novels that, for various reasons, have been considered some of the greatest works of literature ever written.
Anna Karenina
Any fan of stories that involve juicy subjects like adultery, gambling, marriage plots, and, well, Russian feudalism, would instantly place Anna Karenina at the peak of their “greatest novels” list. And that’s exactly the ranking that publications like Time magazine have given the novel since it was published in its entirety in 1878. Written by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, the eight-part towering work of fiction tells the story of two major characters: a tragic, disenchanted housewife, the titular Anna, who runs off with her young lover, and a lovestruck landowner named Konstantin Levin, who struggles in faith and philosophy. Tolstoy molds together thoughtful discussions on love, pain, and family in Russian society with a sizable cast of characters regarded for their realistic humanity. The novel was especially revolutionary in its treatment of women, depicting prejudices and social hardships of the time with vivid emotion.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee, believed to be one of the most influential authors to have ever existed, famously published only a single novel (up until its controversial sequel was published in 2015 just before her death). Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 and became an immediate classic of literature. The novel examines racism in the American South through the innocent wide eyes of a clever young girl named Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch. Its iconic characters, most notably the sympathetic and just lawyer and father Atticus Finch, served as role models and changed perspectives in the United States at a time when tensions regarding race were high. To Kill a Mockingbird earned the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 and was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962, giving the story and its characters further life and influence over the American social sphere.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is distinguished as one of the greatest texts for introducing students to the art of reading literature critically (which means you may have read it in school). The novel is told from the perspective of a young man named Nick Carraway who has recently moved to New York City and is befriended by his eccentric nouveau riche neighbor with mysterious origins, Jay Gatsby. The Great Gatsby provides an insider’s look into the Jazz Age of the 1920s in United States history while at the same time critiquing the idea of the “American Dream.” Perhaps the most-famous aspect of the novel is its cover art—a piercing face projected onto a dark blue night sky and lights from a cityscape—an image that is also found, in a slightly different configuration, within the text itself as a key symbol.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The late Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez published his most-famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, in 1967. The novel tells the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and follows the establishment of their town Macondo until its destruction along with the last of the family’s descendents. In fantastical form, the novel explores the genre of magic realism by emphasizing the extraordinary nature of commonplace things while mystical things are shown to be common. Márquez highlights the prevalence and power of myth and folktale in relating history and Latin American culture. The novel won many awards for Márquez, leading the way to his eventual honor of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his entire body of work, of which One Hundred Years of Solitude is often lauded as his most triumphant.
A Passage to India
E.M. Forster wrote his novel A Passage to India after multiple trips to the country throughout his early life. The book was published in 1924 and follows a Muslim Indian doctor named Aziz and his relationships with an English professor, Cyril Fielding, and a visiting English schoolteacher named Adela Quested. When Adela believes that Aziz has assaulted her while on a trip to the Marabar caves near the fictional city of Chandrapore, where the story is set, tensions between the Indian community and the colonial British community rise. The possibility of friendship and connection between English and Indian people, despite their cultural differences and imperial tensions, is explored in the conflict. The novel’s colorful descriptions of nature, the landscape of India, and the figurative power that they are given within the text solidifies it as a great work of fiction.
Invisible Man
Often confused with H.G. Wells’s science-fiction novella of nearly the same name (just subtract a “The”), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a groundbreaking novel in the expression of identity for the African American male. The narrator of the novel, a man who is never named but believes he is “invisible” to others socially, tells the story of his move from the South to college and then to New York City. In each location he faces extreme adversity and discrimination, falling into and out of work, relationships, and questionable social movements in a wayward and ethereal mindset. The novel is renowned for its surreal and experimental style of writing that explores the symbolism surrounding African American identity and culture. Invisible Man won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1953.
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, perhaps the most influential and well-known work of Spanish literature, was first published in full in 1615. The novel, which is very regularly regarded as one of the best literary works of all time, tells the story of a man who takes the name “Don Quixote de la Mancha” and sets off in a fit of obsession over romantic novels about chivalry to revive the custom and become a hero himself. The character of Don Quixote has become an idol and somewhat of an archetypal character, influencing many major works of art, music, and literature since the novel’s publication. The text has been so influential that a word, quixotic, based on the Don Quixote character, was created to describe someone who is, “foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action.”
Beloved
Toni Morrison’s 1987 spiritual and haunting novel Beloved tells the story of an escaped slave named Sethe who has fled to Cincinnati, Ohio, in the year 1873. The novel investigates the trauma of slavery even after freedom has been gained, depicting Sethe’s guilt and emotional pain after having killed her own child, whom she named Beloved, to keep her from living life as a slave. A spectral figure appears in the lives of the characters and goes by the same name as the child, embodying the family’s anguish and hardship and making their feelings and past unavoidable. The novel was lauded for addressing the psychological effects of slavery and the importance of family and community in healing. Beloved was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988.
Mrs. Dalloway
Possibly the most idiosyncratic novel of this list, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway describes exactly one day in the life of a British socialite named Clarissa Dalloway. Using a combination of a third-person narration and the thoughts of various characters, the novel uses a stream-of-consciousness style all the way through. The result of this style is a deeply personal and revealing look into the characters’ minds, with the novel relying heavily on character rather than plot to tell its story. The thoughts of the characters include constant regrets and thoughts of the past, their struggles with mental illness and post-traumatic stress from World War I, and the effect of social pressures. The novel’s unique style, subject, and time setting make it one of the most respected and regarded works of all time.
Things Fall Apart
The Western canon of “great literature” often focuses on writers who come from North America or Europe and often ignores accomplished writers and amazing works of literature from other parts of the world. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, is one such work of African literature that had to overcome the bias of some literary circles and one that has been able to gain recognition worldwide despite it. The novel follows an Igbo man named Okonkwo, describing his family, the village in Nigeria where he lives, and the effects of British colonialism on his native country. The novel is an example of African postcolonial literature, a genre that has grown in size and recognition since the mid-1900s as African people have been able to share their often unheard stories of imperialism from the perspective of the colonized. The novel is frequently assigned for reading in courses on world literature and African studies.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, another novel often assigned for reading in school, was initially published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell to disguise the fact that the writer was a woman. Fortunately, a lot has changed with regard to women in literature since 1847, and Brontë now receives the credit she deserves for one of the most-groundbreaking novels about women in history. At a time when the author felt compelled to hide her true identity, Jane Eyre provided a story of individualism for women. The novel’s eponymous character rises from being orphaned and poor into a successful and independent woman. The work combines themes from both Gothic and Victorian literature, revolutionizing the art of the novel by focusing on the growth in Jane’s sensibility with internalized action and writing.
The Color Purple
Though the epistolary novel (a novel in the form of letters written by one or more characters) was most popular before the 19th century, Alice Walker became a champion of the style with her 1982 Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning novel The Color Purple. Set in the post-Civil War American South, the novel follows a young African American girl named Celie into adulthood in letters she writes to God and to her sister Nettie. Celie faces sexual abuse by her father and eventually her husband, chronicling her own suffering and growth as well as that of her friends and family. The novel explores themes of sexism, racism, gender, sexual orientation, and disability through its grouping of disadvantaged and damaged characters who, over time, grow to shape their own lives. The story was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film in 1985 that, despite widespread critical acclaim, was notoriously snubbed of all 11 awards it was nominated for.
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
The gambling world can sometimes produce really off-the-wall stories. Every month there are plenty of cases of individuals going to extreme lengths to pay back debts, or of simply bizarre behavior at casino properties around the globe. It can be entertaining and sometimes sad.
We’ve been giving you our favorite stories each month in 2017, and now at the conclusion of the year we are presenting you with some of the craziest from the year that was.
Las Vegas’ Red Rock casino is still under fire after refusing to pay out a bad-beat jackpot from July because one of the players accidentally turned over his cards prematurely. A recent hearing featured testimony about the controversial poker hand that occurred in the casino’s 20-table poker room. The casino had a bad beat progressive jackpot worth $120,000 when 83-year-old Avi Shamir lost with a straight flush to a higher one from a poker player by the name of Len Schreter. Red Rock examined video footage and decided to invalidate the jackpot because Schreter turned exposed his cards after the river card was dealt, but before the final round of betting had been completed.
The film adaptation of Molly Bloom’s 2014 memoir hit U.S. theaters on Christmas Day, and to promote the project Bloom made her interview rounds. In a chat in November with Ellen DeGeneres, Bloom revealed the biggest poker loss she ever saw first-hand. “I saw someone lose $100 million in a night,” Bloom told DeGeneres. She added that the player “paid the next day.” Bloom said the buy-in for her most expensive and exclusive games, which ran in L.A. and later New York City, was $250,000. That was presumably the minimum buy-in. Celebrities in her games, which kicked off around the height of the poker boom in the mid-2000s, included Alex Rodriguez, Dan Bilzerian, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Toby Maguire and Nick Cassavetes, as well as billionaires such as Alec Gores and Andy Beal.
Greatest Stories Ever Told
A West Virginia man told a judge in January that he left a casino to rob a bank, only to return with the money and continue playing. According to police, Kerry Johnson, 52, put a $25 chip on a blackjack table to keep his seat and then drove 13 miles to a nearby bank and told the tellers that he had a bomb. After leaving with about $5,000 in cash, he returned to the blackjack table to continue playing. He lost again. Police later found him at his home sleeping on a couch. He ended up pleading guilty and in March received five to 18 years in prison. Johnson told the court that “most of the day was a blur” thanks to drug use. He claims that he only knew what he had done after seeing video of himself.
The insider trading case involving legendary Las Vegas sports bettor Billy Walters and the former chairman of Dean Foods played out in court in 2017, and some juicy details emerged during the trial. In March, a Manhattan court was told that Tom Davis, who prosecutors say fed nonpublic information to Walters over a six-year period, was a degenerate gambler who once lost $150,000 in a single hand of blackjack. Walters allegedly profited more than $40 million from Davis’ tips. Davis was the former CEO of Dean Foods, a Fortune 500 company that is the largest processor and distributor of fresh milk in the United States. Davis received a two-year prison sentence in October, just months after Walters was hit with a five-year sentence.
A gambler in Florida learned a lesson the hard way in January when a woman he had befriended was sitting next to him at a $50-a-spin slot machine in the high-roller room at the Seminole Hard Rock casino. The man, Jan Flato, said that he was feeding the machine money and let Marina Medvedeva Navarro push the button for good luck. The spin resulted in a $100,000 jackpot. Because Navarro had placed the wager, the casino gave her the money—$50,000 in cash and a $50,000 check. Video footage confirmed that she had pressed the button. However, Navarro denied Flato’s version of events, saying that it was actually her money in the machine and that Flato knew that the gambler who pushes the button gets the jackpot.
Nearly everybody thought it was impossible, and they were right. Back in May, California poker pro Mike Noori, who has about $400,000 in lifetime tournament earnings, miserably failed in his attempt to eat $1,000 worth of McDonald’s (not including drinks) in 36 hours. The idea for the prop bet came from Poker Hall of Fame nominee Matt Savage. More than $200,000 worth of action was booked for the bet, according to Noori, though his stake was only a “tiny piece of it.” Bettors on Noori reportedly were getting 5-1. After 10 hours into the bet, Noori had only consumed $90 worth of the fast food. The bet was eventually aborted at around the $100 mark. Some commentators called the effort “pathetic,” but Noori was apparently already struggling just 10 percent of the way through the bet.
This past summer, a Kentucky man said Cincinnati’s casino kicked him out during a $1,000 giveaway in the poker room after falsely accusing him of pooping his pants. According to a report from Fox19.com, the gambler identified only as “Tyler” claimed he went to the bathroom during the poker promotion and when he exited security said that he needed to leave over a stain on his pants. Other casino patrons reportedly complained that he smelled. However, he denies that he had a bathroom mishap and said it was because the casino didn’t want him to win any additional money from the promotion. A representative from JACK Casino told Fox19 that there was video evidence to apparently back up the casino’s decision. The casino released a statement saying its “top priority” is to maintain “a clean and sanitary environment” for customers.
In August, a massive $1.2 million bad beat jackpot was hit just minutes south of downtown Montreal. The Playground Poker Club’s progressive bad beat jackpot stood at well over seven figures when the JJ lost to the Q8 on a board reading J69J10. Shane Galle held the straight flush, winning about $230,000. Elphege Delarosbil took the lion’s share with a $460,000 payout thanks to losing after flopping a set and turning quads. The players at the table who witnessed the improbable hand each received more than $30,000. About $1,200 was paid to everyone else in the room when it happened. The bad-beat jackpot was one of the largest ever seen in the poker world, but million-dollar bad beats aren’t unheard of.
A veteran Boston police officer was indicted this past fall for allegedly trying to launder money at the state’s only casino. A Suffolk County Grand Jury indicted Joseph Nee, 44, on the charges of larceny over $250 and money laundering. He allegedly stole money from the police department’s evidence room and attempted to launder while playing slots at Plainridge Park Casino. The indictment said that in January 2017 Nee stole about $2,000 from the file of a closed bank robbery case. The stolen money was identified by the traces of red dye left from an anti-theft dye pack that discharged during the bank robbery.
A high-stakes court battle involving two wealthy poker players heated in early November after one of the men filed a counterclaim to the original lawsuit filed this summer. Australian poker pro Matt Kirk claimed in the suit that Czech casino owner Leon Tsoukernik owes him $2 million from loans made during a poker session in late May at the Aria casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Months later in court documents, Tsoukernik said he was taken advantage of by Kirk and the casino they played at. Tsoukernik said that alcohol was provided to him and that it was “sufficient to visibly intoxicate and impair” him and “induce him to play for large sums.” Tsoukernik wants millions of dollars from Kirk and the casino, citing damage to his reputation.
Las Vegas police said a local pastor tested his luck one too many times at an off-Strip casino. Police arrested Gregory Bolusan in September at Penn National Gaming’s M Resort casino for attempting to rob the property of about $33,000. Police say he brandished a phony gun when he demanded the cash from the casino’s cashiers cage. Remarkably, the incident was Bolusan’s third attempted robbery of the casino in the span of just a few monhs, according to police. The first occurred in late August. Bolusan reportedly works a senior pastor at Grace Bible Church Las Vegas. In the alleged Oct. 28, he parked his car in the exact same spot as the other two incidents and entered the exact same doors of the casino as before. That time casino security staff were waiting for him, and police later showed up to take him into custody.
The Greatest Story Ever Told Book
A fully nude man was walking around one of Las Vegas’ largest poker rooms in October when poker players started to take notice. The Bellagio poker room was abuzz when the unknown gambler was eventually cornered off by security and forced to put back on his clothes that he was carrying around in his arms, covering his groin area. According to a Tweet from Tommy Bates, Director of Poker at Philadelphia’s SugarHouse Casino, the man apparently was playing poker previously and returned nude for some reason to retrieve a couple of personal items. However, others in the poker community said it looked like he was trying to buy into a game. There was also speculation that the incident was the result of a prop bet.
Comments are closed.