A Poem about Gambling

As Bad as a Mile

Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more

Of failure spreading back up the arm
Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,
The apple unbitten in the palm.

(Philip Larkin - 1960)


This was originally titled "As Good as a Mile", which seems significant somehow.  Something to ponder.

In my gambling years I had cause to think about it a lot.  Being a gambler brings you face to face with luck and its wider implications like no other lifestyle choice.  For a few years I had post-it notes stuck on my computer and on the walls - rules and thoughts on gambling, mantras, promises. In gambling it's the losing run that kills you. You need help, sustenance, hope, data, self-belief. 

"When you're winning  you're not as good as you think you are."

"When you're losing you're not as bad as you think you are."

"Don't be fooled by randomness."

"Why don't we put more money on the ones that win and less on the ones that lose? In fact, I'm not sure why we're putting money on the ones that lose at all."

Stuff like that. And Larkin's poem. Which seems to me to look at luck in an utterly profound way, though its exact meaning remains stubbornly out of reach most of the time, allowing me to catch an occasional glimpse of it, out of the corner of my eye, a gambler's lot, somewhere between I could have done and I did. 

That or it's all Eve's fault...