Man bets all on roulette and wins Now the subject of TV show Sunday, April 11, 2004 Posted: 9:17 PM EDT (0117 GMT) LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Reuters) -- A British man who sold all his possessions, including his clothes, stood in a rented tuxedo on Sunday surrounded by family and friends and bet everything on a single spin of the roulette wheel. He won't go home empty handed. Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, sold all his possessions in March, took $135,300 to the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, did some low stakes gambling and then placed everything he had left on "Red." The wheel was spun, a crowd of supporters including his Mum and Dad from London went wild, the ball bobbled over the slots and landed on Red '7' -- and Revell walked away with $270,600. "It all happened so quickly, it was spinning before I knew it," Revell said, adding he did not intend to try to double it again. He gave a $600 tip to the croupier and plans to party -- and buy some clothes. "It's really down to my friends and family and Mum and Dad," he told Reuters Television. "I knew even if I lost I'd always have a home to go to." "I'm still against it," said his Dad. "He shouldn't have done it. He's a naughty boy. I tell my kids they shouldn't gamble. I've got four others and they're all going to want to go the same way." "It's just brilliant," said Ashley Hames, a friend from London in Las Vegas for the occasion. "He's put his neck on the line and got away with it. It's absolutely great." "It bobbled for a second and I just thought, 'Oh no, it's not going to do it,'" said another friend, James Frederick. "But it did and I'm made up for him. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy." Asked if he wanted to try his luck again, Revell said: "No that's it for me. I think he'd like me to do it again, but no that's it," gesturing to a casino host. "I don't want to ride my luck," he said as the champagne began to flow. This week, the gambling spirits had seemed against him. He put in a week gambling about $3,000 in a bid to raise his pot. Revell, recently a professional gambler, said he decided to take a big plunge while he was still young and had raised the stakes as high as possible, including selling his clothes. "I like to do things properly," he said. Revell said he had planned to have a friend videotape his bet-it-all spin, but Britain's Sky One television decided it was worth a short reality series, called "Double or Nothing." Sky will not pay him, he says, but a crew from Dai4 Films has followed his preparations and covered the spin at the Plaza Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It also plans to follow him for a month afterward. http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/11/roulette.win.reut/index.html
As Tom Cruise said in "Risky Business" ... "sometime's you just gotta say 'what the fuck!' ". Maybe some of you know the famous story of "Fast Eddie" in Vegas. In about 1992 or so, this social security guy walks in with his $600 ss check to the Horseshoe. Playing dice, he runs it up to (I forget exactly) somewhere around a million bucks. Then lost it all. By this time, the local papers had reporters at the Horseshoe. When Eddie left broke, he was asked how he felt. His response was that he had lost $600 lots of times. Part of the beauty of the story IIRC was he actually need the money to pay his real estate taxes on a condo he bought with money from another hot night at the tables. I once saw this same guy come into a downtown casino wearing a hospital gown (pretty well covered with blood). He still had some tubes stuck in his arms. No idea why he was in the hospital, but he was medicating himself from the bar right away. The open-in-the-back hospital gown was not a pretty sight on this 80+ year old flea. Vegas, gotta love it And the mentality? Like GG understanding the Pope. It takes all kinds. We are an interesting species. Peace, RS
Well, seeings the pope launders all the terrorists' drug money through his phony Catholic Church religion, it may be you (the misguided one). No offense, GG, you're one of the good guys. to
It'd be funny if we saw a rush of gamblers within the next few weeks going in and attempting the same feat...
Well if there is not a god, then you are the less misguided. (about this one issue) If there IS a god, then you are both misguided IMO. You know how I feel about "brand name religions". If God exists, he/she/it would have to be accepting of all "believers" on an equal opportunity basis. But organized religions universally say this is not how "God" does things. Too many religions. None of them can be exclusively "right". Therefore they are all inherently "wrong" if for no other reason than not to accept the simple concept that "brand names" make no sense, are inherently based on bigotry, arrogance and closed mindedness. And if any specific brand name religion is exactly right, how come every denomination of every religion needs money? Wouldn't the "right" one be provided for by divine intervention? RS
i agree with a lot of what you say here. although i don't believe in any gods, i am more anti-religion than i am anti-god. i say this because, imo, any religion humans on earth believe is probably wrong. if a god exists, imo, it is probably nothing like man imagines.
Wouldn't this guy's odds have been better on the pass line at craps rather than red on the wheel? And since somehow this has turned into another religion thread, have you nonbelievers like GG calculated the risk/reward if you're wrong?