Strangest Gaming Stories

The gambling world is full of some amazing stories - most of which involve people either winning or losing enormous sums of money. However, there are also gambling stories that are just downright strange, and have much less to do with the outcome of a game. In fact, here is a list of some of the weirdest gambling-related stories ever.

The folklore character Robin Hood is known for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. And this tale has spawned a real, modern day Robin Hood, who’s set out to win money from the rich casinos, and deliver it to those in need. Going by the moniker Robin Hood 702 (Las Vegas area code), the anonymous man once accepted video submissions from needy families, and chose two that he would donate gambling winnings to. In all, he raised over $55k for the two families.

As for his overall charitable goal, Robin Hood 702 has been quoted as saying, “"I want to create a movement where other people are touched by this - stockbrokers, futures traders, doctors, lawyers. Whatever their niche in life is, I want them to be touched and say you know what, I want to make a difference too. If this little gambler guy can do it, why can't I?"

84-year-old Muriel Hattersley must have been pretty happy while walking home from the local bingo hall on the outskirts of Crewe, Cheshire; after all, she had just won a decent-sized £30 prize. However, bingo winnings notwithstanding, this would turn out to be a very unlucky night for the UK grandma after she fell in a farmer’s field and was knocked unconscious.

Things only got worse from here when a pig found her unconscious body, and began eating Hattersly. After Hattersley’s body was discovered, her grief-stricken daughter, Janet Wilson, told papers, “Mum insisted on walking home from the bingo. We were worried she’d be mugged, but she said she lived on the outskirts of town, countryside really, and she’d be safe. Nobody likes to hear that their mum has been eaten by a pig…let alone eaten alive by a pig. It’s horrible.”

Priests are typically held to a higher moral standard than the average person since they head churches. However, a priest in the United States named John Regan was anything but moral when he embezzled almost $300,000 from the St. Walter Parrish. Even worse is that he took the money and gambled it all away at an Illinois riverboat casino.

Before being sentenced to 60 days in prison, Regan expressed his sorrow over the theft by saying, “Every day was a good day to go to the casino, and that’s the insidious nature of the disease I have. I can’t imagine anybody wanting to do what I’ve done.”

Roulette player Ashley Revell became an overnight celebrity after selling all of his possessions (worth $135,300), and putting the entire amount on red. The buildup to this moment was incredible as several major news outlets like E!, CNN and Sky One all covered the event.

After the ball landed on red, Revell doubled his money to $270,600, and avoided being homeless in the process. Following the win Revell said, “Looking back on it now, I mean, at no point before I did the bet did I think about losing. I just felt positive, and thought about just going ahead and winning.”

Everybody who plays casino games dreams of one day hitting a huge jackpot that will make them rich. And this is exactly what happened to Behar Merlaku in Austria’s Casino Bregenz when won a €43 million slots jackpot….or at least he thought so. Merlaku’s celebration was short-lived after casino officials told him that there had been a software error, and he didn’t really win the jackpot.

The 26-year-old was supposed to be having fun celebrating his son’s birth, but instead was stricken with grief following the incident. He told reporters, “I’m happy about my first born son Erion, but I have psychological problems since the jackpot incident. I can’t sleep anymore, and I constantly think about the injustice I’ve experienced. I’m almost ruined.