Raymond Alen
Gambling has been one of our favorite pastimes for thousands of years now. Countless people enchanted by games of chance throughout history have shared their wisdom, observations, conclusions, and advice about gambling.
We’ve decided to compile everything into a comprehensive list and give you the top 70 gambling quotes and sayings. Some will give you invaluable insights into the world of gambling, others will make you chuckle, and a few might even alter how you perceive games of chance!
Here’s our selection of the best inspirational, humorous, and wise gambling quotes, sayings, and proverbs:
“If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.”
“Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness. We gamble. Some do it at the gaming table, some do not. You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play.”
“Gambling is the great leveler. All men are equal at cards.”
“The subject of gambling is all encompassing. It combines man’s natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future.”
“True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home.”
“At the gambling table, there are no fathers and sons.”
“Gambling is entertainment. People go to casinos to be entertained.”
“Gambling is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography. It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching television. And the percentages are better than religion.”
“It’s hard to walk away from a winning streak, even harder to leave the table when you’re on a losing one.”
“I want people to understand, gambling is not a bad thing if you do it within the framework of what it’s meant to be, which is fun and entertaining.”
“Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.”
“Hoping to recoup is what ruins the gambler.”
“Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”
“Nobody has ever bet enough on a winning horse.”
“Remember this. The house doesn’t beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself.”
“Better an ounce of luck than a pound of gold.”
“Eat your betting money but don’t bet your eating money.”
“A gambler never makes the same mistake twice. It’s usually three or more times.”
“If you ain’t just a little scared when you enter a casino, you are either very rich or you haven’t studied the games enough.”
“The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.”
“A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.”
“Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.”
“Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.”
“If you would read a man’s disposition, see him game; you will then learn more of him in one hour, than in seven years conversation.”
“A racehorse is an animal that can take several thousand people for a ride at the same time.”
“If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.”
“Never gamble with a man who knows both sides of the cards.”
“Gambling is risk-taking. It might be said the owner of a casino gambles, takes risks, but he has the odds in his favor, so that’s intelligent gambling. If I wanted to gamble, I’d buy the casino.”
“I have a notion that gamblers are as happy as most people, being always excited; women, wine, fame, the table, even ambition, sate now & then, but every turn of the card & cast of the dice keeps the gambler alive.”
“Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich — something for nothing.”
“Gaming itself … will only end when human nature has changed completely and there are no more bets to win.”
“I like to play blackjack. I’m not addicted to gambling. I’m addicted to sitting in a semicircle.”
“There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart.”
“All kinds of gambling, from bingo to baccarat, are benign entertainment for most people, dangerously addictive to a few, and capable of breeding unwanted side effects for society.”
“The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.”
“Writing’s like gambling. Unpredictable and sporadic successes make you more addicted, not less.”
“Sometimes a 3–1 favorite loses. That’s why they call it gambling, and that’s why they keep flipping over the cards.”
“You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.”
“Life is like a poker game. You deal or are dealt to. Your success depends on skill, luck, and creativity. You bet, check, bluff, and raise. Your education comes from those you play with. Sometimes, you win with a pair or lose with a full house. But whatever happens, it pays to keep a sense of humor.”
“Trust everybody but cut the cards.”
“The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.”
“Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.”
“In gambling, the many must lose in order that the few may win.”
“This was my first lesson about gambling: if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn’t gambling; he’s cheating.”
“Quit while you’re ahead. All the best gamblers do.”
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
“Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?”
“All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion.”
“You don’t gamble to win. You gamble so you can gamble the next day.”
“A man’s gotta make at least one bet a day, else he could be walking around lucky and never know it.”
“You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
“Guessing has never been widely acclaimed as a good gambling strategy.”
“Luck sometimes visits a fool, but it never sits down with him.”
“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
“You will show your poker greatness by the hands you fold, not the hands you play.”
“The excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win times the probability of winning it.”
“The less you bet, the more you lose when you win.”
“Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn’t play poker.”
“No woman can endure a gambling husband, unless he is a steady winner.”
“Luck never gives; it only lends.”
“No dog can go as fast as the money you bet on him.”
“A number of moralists condemn lotteries and refuse to see anything noble in the passion of the ordinary gambler. They judge gambling as some atheists judge religion, by its excesses.”
“Dear Lord, help me to break even. I need the money.”
“Everything’s a gamble, love most of all.”
“Bond didn’t defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.”
“I’ve learned the lesson that the worst thing that can happen to a gambler is to let his recent losses or wins knock him off keel emotionally.”
“Slot machines sit there like young courtesans, promising pleasures undreamed of, your deepest desires fulfilled, all lusts satiated.”
“Horse racing is animated roulette.”
“One of the healthiest ways to gamble is with a spade and a package of garden seeds.”
