The Funniest Gambling Stories
Gambling is one of those pursuits that when things go wrong, you have to work hard to decide whether to laugh or cry. We, naturally, prefer to laugh. It’s a game and they can be a lot of fun, but every now and then a cringe worthy mistake or a tragic loss is just too much to bear, and we have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. We have gathered for you the best of the stories that have made us laugh, some are tragic, one is frustrating, and one is just so amazing it can barely be believed!
When You Can’t Claim Your Winnings
Nothing quite beats the frustration of not being able to claim your winnings, and there are two such cases where exactly that has been the case. In one of these stories a woman in Arizona was incredibly happy when she won a jackpot of $1200 after playing slots at a local casino. She triumphantly went to claim her winnings, but when cashing out was asked for her passport. She was unable to provide one, and so there were further investigations and it was discovered that she was actually an illegal immigrant. Not only did the poor woman not get her jackpot, but within weeks she was also deported back to her home in Mexico!
A similar story, but one lacking deportation at least, is that of a winner in Chandigrah, India who is rumoured to have won $500,000 in an online casino jackpot. There is one catch. The winner himself was only 8 years old. Well known as a boy genius, he had been creating webpages by the age of 4, so a jump to using his uncle’s casino account to play poker is no stretch of the imagination. It was after he won the prize that the casino objected to his age and refused to pay out the money. However, his parents and uncle maintain that the casino was aware of the boy’s age when he had won smaller amounts on other occasions, and have taken them to court over the matter. To this day, there is no resolution. But one thing is for sure, we better watch out when that boy is old enough to play poker in WSOP and other international tournaments!
Crazy But True
Some stories are just so crazy you can’t believe they are true, and we have the best of them. Would you believe that all the employees of FedEx owe their jobs to a night of blackjack? Its 100% true.
As one of the biggest international courier companies, FedEx has such a solid reputation it’s hard to believe the company was ever so close to going broke. But in 1973 they were so close to bankrupt they couldn’t pay the fuel bill to get the next few loads out, which they needed in order to get the next lot of funds in. They were stuck in a very tough position. The CEO, Fred Smith, couldn’t see a way out and decided to try his luck at the casino, and took the very last $5000 in the company account and headed to the Vegas. In what can almost be considered fate, Smith made a massive scoop and brought home over $27,000 dollars and was able to pay the fuel bills. It was the last time FedEx came so close to closing and was a night that set a man on his path of owning a multi million-dollar company.
How Cheaters Beat the Casino
It doesn’t often happen that the house loses but when they do most gamblers feel like a small victory has been won. The following story, however, was no small victory, and has changed the face of rules across the USA.
Michael Russo and James Grosjean were having a few good nights out in Vegas when a well-known casino detained them, wrote their names in the infamous Griffiths Book and banned them from the casino. While this may have been a normal day at work for the casino staff, Russo and Grosjean were incensed and decided to take the matter further. They sued the casino and stated that they had used no devices or cheating paraphernalia in order to win the games, but had instead used only their intellectual abilities. It’s a tough rule of the casino that has been around forever, that of card counting. Should an intellectual ability really be considered a crime? The courts decided they shouldn’t and Russo and Grosjean won their suit.
It is for this reason to day that casinos can no longer detain players against their will when they are caught card counting, though they are still able to ask to you to leave. Now if that victory isn’t something to laugh about that we don’t know what is!
