---
title: "40 Interesting Facts About Gambling"
url: https://www.kickassfacts.com/gambling-facts/
date: 2018-08-15
modified: 2018-08-15
lang: en
author: "jazz"
description: "Here are 40 Interesting Gambling facts. 1-5 Gambling Facts 1. Tesla became a gambling addict, lost all his tuition money, dropped out of school and suffered a nervous breakdown. -..."
categories:
  - "Entertainment"
  - "Fact List"
image: https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/gambling-articl.jpg
word_count: 1345
---

# 40 Interesting Facts About Gambling

Here are 40 Interesting Gambling facts.

## 1-5 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/N.Tesla_-1.jpg)

1. Tesla became a gambling addict, lost all his tuition money, dropped out of [school](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-interesting-facts-about-schools/) and suffered a nervous breakdown. - [Source](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-his-tower-11074324/)

2. A village in [India](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-kickass-and-interesting-facts-about-india-part-2-of-2/) is addicted to [chess](https://www.kickassfacts.com/chess-facts/) after one man taught everyone how to play 50 years ago to stop excessive [alcohol](https://www.kickassfacts.com/30-kickass-and-interesting-facts-about-alcohol/) use and gambling which has now all declined to almost nothing. - [Source](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170511-the-indian-village-addicted-to-chess)

3. A wife bought a scratch-off lottery ticket to prove a point to her husband that it was a waste of money, but it ended up winning her $1 million. - [Source](https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/27/us/lottery-lesson-trnd/index.html)

4. Monkeys can learn to use the money. Capuchins that were taught to exchange silver discs for treats began budgeting for foods they liked, buying more of something when the price dropped and started gambling. Eventually, rich [monkeys](https://www.kickassfacts.com/monkey-facts/) even figured out they could pay each other for sex. - [Source](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/monkey-business.html)

5. In the early days of FedEx, CEO Fred Smith took the company's last $5,000 to [Las Vegas](https://www.kickassfacts.com/20-kickass-interesting-facts-about-vegas/) and won $27,000 gambling on blackjack to cover the company's $24,000 fuel bill. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._Smith)

## 6-10 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Pachinko.jpg)Image credit: en.wikipedia.org

6. Gambling for cash is illegal in [Japan](https://www.kickassfacts.com/30-kickass-amazing-facts-about-japan-part2/). Instead, balls won from games are exchanged for prizes or tokens. These items are then exchanged for cash at a place nominally separate from the parlor. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko)

7. The night before the Olympic final, Michael Jordan apparently spent the night drinking and gambling all night, then he went on a long day of press appearances, plus 18 holes of golf in Barcelona before he went on to lead Team USA in a gold-medal winning victory over Croatia. - [Source](https://sports.yahoo.com/news/michael-jordan-apparently-didnt-sleep-223549608.html)

8. In 1992, an Australian gambling syndicate bought almost all the combinations in a Virginia lottery and won, turning a $5M purchase into a $27M winnings. - [Source](https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/25/us/group-invests-5-million-to-hedge-bets-in-lottery.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

9. All gambling in [Finland](https://www.kickassfacts.com/35-fascinating-finland-facts/) is controlled by the government, and all of the profits go to [charity](https://www.kickassfacts.com/charity-facts/). - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland%27s_Slot_Machine_Association)

10. Loot Boxes are regulated in some countries under gambling laws. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box)

## 11-15 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/pinball-game.jpg)

11. Pinball was banned in [NYC](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-kickass-facts-about-new-york-city/) as a gambling device until 1976 when Roger Sharpe testified by playing pinball in the courtroom while calling out precisely what he was going to shoot for and scoring showing that it's a game of skill and not chance. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball#Pinball_and_gambling)

12. After Russia outlawed virtually all gambling in 2009. A Russian engineer learned how to cheat slot machines. He took his knowledge to the [U.S.](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-interesting-facts-about-usa-part-7/) and won $21,000. [Casinos](https://www.kickassfacts.com/casino-facts/) still have no fix for it. - [Source](https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians-engineer-brilliant-slot-machine-cheat-casinos-no-fix/)

13. Canadians who win sweepstakes have to answer a math question to claim the winnings to keep it from being considered gambling or a game of chance. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill_testing_question)

14. The most successful pirate in history was a Chinese prostitute. Cheng I Sao commanded 80,000 sailors & a fleet bigger than most country’s navies, which is why the government had to give up and offer her a truce. She retired with her loot & opened a gambling house before passing away peacefully. - [Source](http://edition.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/worklife/08/27/woman.pirate/index.html?iref=newssearch)

15. A gambler named Archie Karas went to Las Vegas with $50, gambled it up to $40 million over the next two years, only to lose it all in three weeks. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Karas)

## 16-20 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/International_Pokémon_logo.png)

16. Two boys tried to sue Nintendo in 1999 alleging that Pokémon caused their gambling addictions. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon#Morality_and_religious_beliefs)

17. Australians lose more money per capita to gambling than any other nation. - [Source](https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/28/health/australia-gambling-addiction-poker-slot-machines/index.html)

18. The sandwich was supposedly invented by the Earl of Sandwich, who was so addicted to gambling that he refused to leave the table for meals and demanded something he could eat with one hand. It caught on amongst other players, who ordered "the same as sandwich" thus, "the sandwich". - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Montagu,_4th_Earl_of_Sandwich)

19. Kowloon Walled City once existed in [Hong Kong](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-kickass-and-interesting-facts-about-hong-kong/) with an estimated population density of 3,250,000 people per square mile. No laws or rules governed the city and had the highest rates of gambling, prostitution, and drug use. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City)

20. In a case study patients were given an experimental drug to treat their Parkinsons disease, 11 of the patients experienced intense urges to gamble their money despite little interest in gambling before. Even losing large sums of money. All the patients stopped gambling when tapered off the meds. - [Source](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/789393)

## 21-25 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Walking_wager.jpg)

21. In the 1800s, one of the most popular sports in the world was distance walking which attracted huge crowds and gambling. Thousands of spectators would turn up to watch challenges such as walking 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrianism)

22. In 2014, Singapore's anti-gambling agency, in a bid to leverage the world cup fever, published an advert that showed a worried kid telling his friend that his father had bet all their savings on [Germany](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-interesting-facts-about-germany/) winning the world cup. Germany won. - [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28318187)

23. Medieval university students had a reputation for drunken debauchery and were criticized for neglecting their studies in favor of gambling, drinking, and sleeping with prostitutes. - [Source](https://www.lostkingdom.net/medieval-education-in-europe/)

24. A male gambler called Brian Zembic is known for doing anything to win a bet and agreed to have breast implants and keep them for one year in return for $100,000. He won the bet and 20 years later still has 38C breasts. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Zembic)

25. Gambling sites and betting odds are better at predicting election results than polls. - [Source](https://www.wnd.com/2016/01/prediction-markets-more-accurate-than-polls/)

## 26-30 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/bowling.jpg)

26. In 1841, the State of Connecticut outlawed nine pin bowling in an attempt to curb gambling. Ten-pin bowling was created as a loophole to get around the law. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling#History)

27. The MGM Grand in Las Vegas had to reconfigure it's original entrance, a large gold walk-through lion, as Chinese high rollers were avoiding it, believing walking through beasts to be unlucky before gambling. - [Source](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/us/21vegas.html)

28. "Hell on Wheels" was originally used to describe the itinerant collection of flimsily assembled gambling houses, dance halls, saloons, and brothels that followed the army of Union Pacific railroad workers westward as they constructed the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1860s North America. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_on_Wheels)

29. A British gambler sold all of his possessions, including all of his clothes, and bet $135,300 on red for a single spin of a roulette wheel in Las Vegas and won. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Revell)

30. In 2015, Tayla Polia, better, got paid out for one of the biggest long shots in gambling history after she hit on a 20,000-to-1 NFL parlay. At 20,000-to-1 odds, Polia’s $5 became $100,005. - [Source](http://www.espn.in/chalk/story/_/id/24257306/gambling-why-future-sports-betting-technology-us-involve-sportsbooks-yachts-cyborgs-enba-league)

## 31-35 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Two_Up.jpg)

31. The Australian gambling game two-up is illegal to play in public, except on Anzac Day each year when it is played in honor of fallen soldiers. - [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-up)

32. Milton Bradley used a spinner in his games instead of dice because of the negative association with gambling. - [Source](http://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/19thcentury/checkeredgame/index.php)

33. Iranian tennis showman Mansour Bahrami fled to France where he tried to meet the higher living costs by gambling all his savings in a casino. He lost everything on the first night. - [Source](https://www.atpworldtour.com/en/players/mansour-bahrami/b001/bio)

34. In order to pay off his gambling debts, Dostoyevsky once wagered the rights to all his past and future works, betting a publisher that he could complete a novel in 30 days. - [Source](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/from-the-gambler-within-dostoyevskys-the-gambler/D7ACB14B9EAD00EB8EF65512C28EADAA)

35. Gambling on papal elections has at least a 500-year history. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_on_papal_elections)

## 36-40 Gambling Facts

![](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Tamagotchi.jpeg)Image credit: en.wikipedia.org

36. A certain Tamagotchi version was almost banned because it had a slot game; it was feared that this would cause children to grow up to become the "gambling addicts of tomorrow". - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi#Criticism_and_controversy)

37. Florida accidentally banned smartphones and computers in an attempt to ban gambling internet cafes. - [Source](https://gizmodo.com/did-florida-accidentally-ban-all-computers-and-smartpho-714494265)

38. Art Schlichter (former NFL QB) blew $20,000 on gambling midway through his first season, $700,000 by the end of the season, more when suspended in 1984, suspended again in 1985 for gambling, arrested for a gambling operation in 1987 then was caught gambling in jail in 2004. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Schlichter)

39. Because gambling is illegal in South Carolina, beach tourists have the option to pay companies to take them into international waters (outside state jurisdiction) via boat in order to gamble. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrtle_Beach,_South_Carolina)

40. The highest level gambling card at a Harrah's Casino, Seven Stars, is named after Harrah's 7 wives. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_F._Harrah#Personal_life)