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I have a confession. I’m the sucker who gambled everything on black and lost.
This is my story…
When the Leicester Mercury asked me to spend a night in a casino and report back I jumped at the chance.
They even gave me a £50 stake and said I could keep my winnings.
Easy money, I thought. It didn’t matter that I was a complete novice. I’d already been there a million times in the movies.
A thunder cloud of cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air as I sat round a dimly lit poker table with an exotic cast of hustlers.
There was the fat man, slavering and suspicious; the professor, all learning and intellect; and the youngster; hard-bitten with a hint of cruelty in his eyes.
And there was me. Cigar in mouth, Jack Daniels in hand, and a gorgeous girl on my arm as I took them all to the cleaners.
At least that was the way I’d pictured it. The reality proved a little bit different.
After a few drinks elsewhere, myself and a friend arrived slightly the worse for wear at the Stanley Casino, in East Bond Street, at 11pm.
A taste of what lay ahead came when we bumped into a slightly shell-shocked man in the foyer.
“I am lost, I am lost,” he mumbled.
“If you’re looking for the games room I think it’s upstairs,” replied my friend.