Ethnologists know that gambling as such was created by humanity to have a fun time. Even today, that situation continues when online casino players are excited to try new games. Over time, these online casino games were included as entertainment for fans of sites not on gamstop in UK.
Stories in which casinos play an important role
The presence of gambling, virtual casinos, and playing monsters is about their global reach and the number of players who have access to the games. Players experience the best gaming alternatives without leaving their location. It is one of the reasons why online casino games have become so popular. That is why literature has taken old and new stories about luck in casinos, made them their own and told them differently.
The earliest literary mentions of gambling come from ancient Greece, where mythical legends were told about games involving the gods themselves.
Since then, there have been many manifestations of culture in which people’s passion for games has been explicitly manifested. These manifestations have contributed to creating many epic stories about gamblers and casinos.
We highlight below 9 books that have dealt with gambling and casinos in the last two centuries.
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Amid a gallery of characters wandering around rootless, the figure of Aleksei Ivanovich personifies the enjoyment, anguish, and balance between his passions: gambling linked to the absolute dependence of his love affairs.
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
This novel marks the first appearance of the character James Bond, which was to be followed by eleven more books. 007’s appearances in different casinos are commonplace in this and its sequels. Nowadays, he would probably also participate in online casinos.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
This novel is one of the most insane by Hunter S. Thompson, a legendary figure of the new journalism and creator of the so-called “gonzo” journalism. The plot centres on the journey of Thompson himself, under the pseudonym Raoul Duke, and his lawyer, Oscar Zeta Acosta, aka Dr. Gonzo, to a surreal Las Vegas, to do some reporting and, above all, to achieve the great American dream.
The Fabulous History of the Pelayos by Iván and Gonzalo García-Pelayo
Nor is it necessary to go to the titles with the most significant international repercussions to find a good novel related to gambling. There are also great stories in Spain that deserve to be told, such as that of this family in the book “La fabulosa Historia de Los Pelayos”. It also has a 2012 film version entitled “The Pelayos”, which was a great success and relaunched the novel. The book, written hand in hand by father and son, details the success in the casinos, the struggles that come with winning a considerable amount of money and the general drawbacks of the gambling halls.
Stephen King’s Apocalypse
The casino as a space loses prominence in this novel and becomes more of an element of the setting. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic future. A flu virus, artificially created as a bacteriological weapon, spreads throughout the world, causing the death of most of the population.
The Fools Die by Mario Puzzo
The Fools Die is Mario Puzzo’s next book after publication, The Godfather. The novel is about John Merlyn, an aspiring writer, and army officer who travels to Las Vegas, where he meets Cully, a bankrupt professional gambler and two-bit hustler.
Leaving Las Vegas by John O’Brien
After getting divorced, Ben Sanderson is an alcoholic screenwriter who falls into a spiral of self-destruction that leads him to be fired by the production studio where he works. Ben decides to move to Las Vegas, where the bars never close.
America by James Ellroy
America is the first part of a trilogy, the underworld trilogy, continued with Six Grand and Tramp Blood. The three novels narrate a saga of the late fifties and early sixties in which Las Vegas and its casinos have a strong presence.
The poet of casinos by Fraklin E. Palacios
The Ecuadorian writer Franklin E. Palacios wrote a book of poems that refer to casino games. The lyrics speak of the rudeness with which gambling used to be carried out, as the non-payment of bets led to deadly confrontations. Palacios also mentions gamblers who became so addicted to gambling that they lost their families in his poems. It is believed that the poet’s inspiration comes from some Spanish writers, such as Alfredo Gómez. The latter has focused their stories on gambling.
Not everything that happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, nor do all the literary stories occur in this city. However, it is the setting for many of our selected novels. Who knows if this sub-genre will not evolve to show us the adventures and misadventures of the characters in cyber portals or online casinos?