Customer Reviews

Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This slim book by the Barthelme Brothers, recounting their descent into gambling hell, is both elegantly written and horrifying. After all, the Barthelmes are college professors and literary stars, and if their lives could veer out of control so suddenly and so badly, then so could yours and mine. The brothers end up throwing away all their money, including a $300,000 inheritance, at a riverboat casino during the year or so after their parents' deaths. Then -- as if the story couldn't get any more gruesome -- they are indicted on charges of cheating the casino! I've spent a lot of time in casinos myself, and can vouch for the accuracy of the Barthelmes' portrait of the casino scene: the mood of the place and the behavior of the various participants are captured perfectly. They are especially good at describing the feelings that run through a gambler while winning and losing. The only shortcoming of the book is the repetitious (and sometimes shallow) analysis of their behavior. Or maybe I've just read one too many books where it all goes back to Mommy and Daddy. I would like them to have stayed more focused on the story, and allow the reader to provide some of the analysis for himself. Also, if the brothers had waited a few months longer before publishing, they would have been able to provide the conclusion to this story, which, as it stands, is anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I would put this on a rather short shelf of great gambling literature, maybe not too far away from Dostoyevsky's "The Gambler."'

I've spent as much time gambling recklessly as searching for the words to explain why. They'd escaped me all these years. Maybe after a big loss I'd come to some partly lucid but entirely fleeting realization driving home in the dark from the boats thinking about what to do next. One or two movies (most remarkably "The Gambler", especially its ending) and books (same, by Doestyevsky) show and talk about it deeply, but this book is different. It details what it's like to gamble like a fool and reveals the fool's motivation: Do it again and again until all the money's gone. Not to sound like a book jacket but a few paragraphs made me wiggle unconfortably in my chair while reading it. (Which I did, beginning to end, at Borders -- not because I was too cheap to buy it (well maybe that's part of it) but because I didn't want to put it down.) I saw myself, and if you've ever watched your whole life turn with a bust card, you will too. Finally gambling's seduced someone with a supreme command of our written language. If you're reading this, thank you. Both of you.

I thought this book was excellent: a memoir by two brothers who lost $250,000 in riverboat casinos. They describe in detail how they would spend 12 hours or more losing thousands in the slot machines, or, more often, at blackjack. And how it escalated slowly, and then how the addiction got completely out-of-hand after both of their elderly parents died. Apparently, their pattern on each gambling spree was to lose a lot, and then spend the rest of the night (and sometimes day) winning back the lost amount. What amazed me is that even after they were indicted for a crime allegedly committed while gambling, they continued their addiction, albeit in another casino. Astounding! This memoir is remarkable on many counts. For one, it is beautifully written (both authors are writing professors), and also, they attempt to analyze their behavior, the big "WHY"? I commend them for revealing so many intimate details. It seems that perhaps the loss of their father, who had been a brilliant architect but an insensitive father to both, put them over the edge. Raised not to show feelings, coupled with their belief that their parents were their only true "community", perhaps put them in a hard, "no win" position when they died. And the only way to "win" (or attempt to) was at the casino. They are excellent at drawing out the allure of gambling - that, no matter win or lose, they were finally "feeling" something at the blackjack table. A sad tale of an attempt to deal with loss in a desperate, impossible way.

A friend of mine gave me his copy of Double Down to read one morning at work, and once I started reading it I didn't put it down until I was finished. Anyone who has pulled a slot will immediately connect with these two brothers and have some understanding of what they experienced. Their losses could have been $30 instead of $300K+ and it wouldn't make any difference. The hook is in the Barthelme Bros thoughtful observations about the psychology that drives their compulsion - the hardness of a father who still has them in his grips, even from the grave + the mid-life search for that one big score . . . again, and again and again.

As someone with a father who was impossible to please, I can really understand why these two brothers were searching so hard for success any way they could find it - even from strangers dealing cards. I can't think of a more appropriate ending than one where the dollars that were so carefully saved by that father are gambled away still searching for his approval. Their run in with the law is really secondary to the life sentence handed down from their father - always feeling that they don't yet have it quite right.

When some athlete demands that his contract be renegotiated and you hear the phrase, "It's not about the money," that's when you know that it most certainly IS about the money. But for the Barthelmes the trouble they find really isn't abou the money. Even though they lost $250,000 gambling in Mississippi casinos, that isn't the loss that moved them. The money they lost wasn't theirs, really, it was inherited from their recently-deceased parents, and much of the book is a memoir of the life they had with their parents, and of how their lives lost direction after their parents passed away.

But I enjoyed the parts revealing their gambling lives best. The brothers were able to live quite normal lives, teaching and writing as well as they ever had while at the same time spending hours at the boats playing games they knew deep down they had no chance to win. Their description of their casino experience is fascinating, often morbidly so. They write of hands that fell their way and slots that yielded big jackpots, but it's difficult to feel any pleasure in it, because you know that the winnings will be returned to the casino in short order.

What this book ISN'T is a book on how not to gamble. The authors realize early on that the casinos exist to take your money. They read scores of books on how to beat the odds and how to count cards and find them all pointless. They like the risk-- counting cards is too much like work, it takes all the fun out of playing. And they understand that over time there is no way you can expect to beat a casino in fair play, no way, no matter how sharp or lucky you are. The merciless laws or probabilty will grind you up. But the most telling line in the whole book sums up the whole problem with gambling addicts, that, "...losing never felt like the worst part. Quitting did."

At the end of the book the brothers were arrested on ridiculous felony gambling charges, and while the dust jacket states that the charges were later dropped, the book itself ends with the charges still standing, so you don't know what happened to them afterwards or why the charges were dropped, which was disappointing.

But the book does show the dark side of big-time gambling (or gaming, gambling's new cute-and-cuddly name) and it provides some sort of counterargument to those who think that gambling can cure a region's economic woes. The games pump some money in, but whose money, and at what social cost is it earned?

This is an engrossing tale of two brothers, college professors and respected authors, who gamble away their inheritance, a quarter-million bucks, in the sleazy casino boats on the Mississippi coast. The title Double Down could refer to the recent deaths of their mother and father, or to a play in the game of blackjack wherein you can double your bet, "double-down".

How could these two brilliant, clear-thinking professor/writers lose all of that money, knowing well that that house had the advantage, and with such steadfast purpose? Was it temporary dementia caused by the loss of their parents, a kind of bereavement ritual? Did the sudden unaccustomed wealth go to their heads? Did they feel undeserving of the inherited wealth and unconsciously look for an ignominious way to dump it? Or did they simply want to try their luck? It's an entertaining story written in the wonderfully clear Barthleme style and, as background to the story, there's a wealth of information about their talented family.

The bizarre punch line is that these respectable, conservative brothers, after losing their inheritance and more, are busted by security at the Grand Casino in Biloxi and accused of collusion with a blackjack dealer -- cheating! The Grand Casino filed their preposterous charge with the Harrison County district attorney who, in turn (gambling casinos must have political clout), indicted and charged them with felony conspiracy to defraud the casino. The chapter in which the brothers are booked and fingerprinted will stay with you for a long time. If you read this book, and I recommend it highly, keep in mind that the most important thing is not that they are "professor/writers" who got in an unlikely and unseemly jam but that they are brothers and ultimately it is a family matter.

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Talking about excessive, out-of-control gambling is only part of the story. The other part is the dramatic effect family can have on people, even men well into middle age. It is apparent that the brothers writing this book wrote it as a type of confessional, as well as an attempt to explain themselves, and their behavior; this is always risky writing, but they pull it off beautifully.

While the book gains its notoriety because of its gambling hook, it's the family stuff that makes this such a terrific read. The brothers Barthelme tell an intoxicating tale of loss.

This book is for anyone who has every gone to a riverboat casino. If you gamble and think that you'll allow this to be a leisure activity; read this book. You will not only see yourself; but you will see how these casino's manipulate you out of your last dollar. It's all a game to them. This book definately hits the mark. I found their observations true and can easily see why they did this...as the casino's call it; a release from everyday life. An excellent read.