The Star Names Known To Have Been Well and Truly Bitten by the Gambling Bug

MANY people dream of winning big at the casino – either online or at the tables or slots in Vegas!

The key to making a success of your time playing is knowing when to bet, when to fold, and when to walk away. The more information you can absorb about all the available games, and how best to play them, the more chance of gaining the edge that can prove the difference between heading home – or logging off – broke, or with your pockets full of dollars, reports Offers.bet.

The casino still exudes an air of glamour which is why it attracts some of the biggest names in sport and showbiz who, let’s be honest, can afford to lose more in a night than many of us earn in a year.

Here we take a look at some of the celebrities who have been at the center of tales of winning and losing big at the tables and slots, and maybe learn a lesson from those who think winning is easy – FYI, it isn’t!

Tiger Woods

There has recently been positive news that the Tiger is on the mend after his horrific car crash in February, and we all wish the 15-times major winner a speedy return to the golf course. But it’s not just golf that’s in the 45-year-old’s blood, gambling is also there too. He was a regular in Vegas: regularly betting big and regularly losing big. He was known to put down $25,000 a time on blackjack hands, and was said to have a $1million betting limit in a particular casino in Vegas – but with earnings in excess of $100million per year at his peak, he was good for it.

Charles Barkley

On the fame front, Barkley is as on a par with the Tiger, but on the gambling front, the golf great pales into insignificance. The 11-time NBA all-star, one of basketball’s all-time greats, loved gambling so much he is reported to have blown a large chunk of the fortune he accrued in a near-20-year career at casinos across the US. In an interview in 2007 he admitted he’d lost approximately $10million gambling, even highlighting losing $2.5million in a single blackjack session.

Ben Affleck

The actor and other half of Jennifer Lopez is keen on his poker and blackjack; he’s not too bad either, winning a poker championship back in 2004, which netted him $350,000 – he’d probably get more now for a cameo in a Hollywood movie. His skill at blackjack once saw him banned from the game at one Las Vegas casino, but it wasn’t all good news, famously placing a $400,000 bet on a poker hand in 2001 – he lost, reported CNN.

John Daly

Tiger rears his head against in this story, and ‘Wild Thing’ certainly lived up to his nickname when it came to gambling. The tale begins with Daly losing a play-off to Woods at the American Express Championship in San Francisco in 2005 – infamously three-putting from 15-feet. To say he was a little miffed at the defeat is an understatement, with Daly driving to Vegas and gambling away $1.65million in five hours. Daly’s excess was legendary and when he bet, he bet big, famously playing $5,000 slots and $15,000 blackjack hands. While it appears amusing, Daly had an addiction, and it took him years to get his gambling under control.