Gambling With Life

Wanna take a chance? Wanna take a risk that’ll involve more than just the possibility of losing some cash? Just how carried away can a person find themselves? Maybe you won’t feel the heightened buzz from gambling with mere money. Nothing can beat gambling with life.

How about a bet where you put it all on the line. Like, for example, your life itself. Now we’re talking. None of this pathetic minimum $1 dollar bets at the poker table. No sir lets make a REAL bet. These following gamblers really did put it all on the line. Some didn’t make it. But that’s not the point. These people were not wagering a human opponent, but death himself. Kudos to them all.

Gambling With Life: Niagara Falls Swim

This spectacular freak of nature on the US Canadian border has been responsible for the deaths of countless individuals who have tried their luck plunging over and surviving. In the late 1800’s it was a magnet to those who wished to be gambling with life by being the first going over the edge into the freezing waters in a barrel and surviving the whole ordeal. Over in England, a certain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel without any aids in 1875. The feat made him into quite the celebrity and he needed another adventure to keep the limelight shining in his direction. He decided that the Niagara rapids below the actual Falls would be his next feat.

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The Niagara Whirlpool Rapids

Known as the Whirlpool Rapids, many thought this was sheer suicide. With his funding depleted, he thought this was how to win the jackpot. So, undeterred, on 24 July 1883, he plunged into the river from a small boat located near the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge and began his swim. Yet he was already drowned in the strong currents before reaching the main rapids.

A certain Bobby Leach, who was the second person to go over the fall successfully and survive the barrel plunge (after Annie Taylor) also attempted the same feat as Webb, though failed on many occasions, as the rapids were too strong for any mortal man.

Gambling With Life: Soviet Pilot Alexander Kliuyev

Imagine that your job requirement is the safety of hundreds of people. And yet you would place a bet gambling on life, yours and theirs. Yeah, like a boss! Enter Soviet pilot Alexander Kliuyev. He made such a wager with his co-pilot, Gennady Zhirnov, on June 28, 1979. They were piloting a commercial aircraft, a Soviet-built Tu-134A, Aeroflot Flight 6502, and were approaching the landing strip of Kurumoch Airport. As they were lining up for the approach, Kliuyev bet his co-pilot that he could safely land the fully loaded plane using only the instruments and with the cockpit windows curtains pulled down. And, as anyone would do in this situation, Zhirmov accepted the wager. In other words, the pilot could land the plane without seeing the ground. Hold my beer!

A True Madlad

In spite of receiving ground proximity warnings at 65 meters, a which point any sane individual would have aborted the maneuver, Kliuyev (thought the bet was double or quits, and) continued with his madness. The aircraft hit the ground at 280 kph. As a result, one set of wing-mounted landing wheels punched right through the wing, detaching it completely. The aircraft then turned upside down. 63 passengers of the plane’s 94 passengers died during the landing. Another seven died in the hospital. The three stewardesses who were sat together happened to be in front of an oxygen release valve, which caught fire, burning then alive to the point that virtually no traces of them remained.

Zhirnov tried his best to save some of the passengers, though suffered a heart attack at the scene and died on his way to the hospital. Kliuyev survived the crash and was sentenced to 15 years, but ended up serving only 6. We’re guessing that he never paid the bet off.

Gambling With Life: Jack McCall and Wild Bill

One of the most famous characters from the era of the US wild west was none other than James Butler Hickok or “Wild Bill Hickok” as he was better known. Unfortunately, gambling was to be both his forte and his failing. Over a long career, he was certainly a jack of all trades. And he certainly was gambling with life many times. After all he spent time as a spy, a scout, a soldier, an actor, a cowboy, a showman and a gunslinger. As a master showman, he understood the power of propaganda and ensured that his tales only grew taller and taller. You could say he was more of a myth than a real man. But real enough he was.

In the town of Deadwood in Dakota Territory, Hickok beat a young hothead called Jack McCall in a jackpot poker game in the Deadwood saloon. Ever the gentleman, Wild Bill loaned McCall money for breakfast the next morning. Apparently McCall took this the wrong way, and thought it a insult. Later the same day the young man returned to the same saloon, walked up behind Wild Bill, and shot him point-blank in the back of the head. Though McCall was arrested and acquitted of murder charges in the Deadwood courthouse.
But he was to be later arrested in Wyoming, where he was tried, found guilty, and hanged.

William Bergstrom: The Mysterious Binion’s Craps Player

During the 1980’s Bergstrom would become famous as one of the biggest high rollers on the planet. But all things come at a cost, as he was later to discover. Spending his whole life in Texas, Bergstrom made his money by buying up flipping small residential properties. After he’s amassed quite a fortune, he decided to try his lick in the casinos of Las Vegas. His first foray into high stakes gambling took place in September of 1980. He turned up at the Binion’s Horseshoe Casino with two suitcases. One contained $777,000 (approx $2.4 million by today’s money), and the other suitcase was empty.

Like A Boss

Now the casino owner, Benny Binion always honored the first bet, no matter how big. So the anonymous Bergstrom put the whole $777,000 on a single don’t pass line bet. Gulp! He established a 6 point lead. Then went to 7 two rolls later. That earned Bergstrom a win equal to his initial bet, $777,000. The “Suitcase Man” packed up his winnings into the empty suitcase and disappeared. This was the largest casino win ever up to that point. No one heard anything from him, or really knew anything about him for the next three and a half years.

Once again he turns up, out of nowhere, carrying two suitcases. This time his first wager was for $538,000 on just a single roll. This came in and he proceeded to roll three more wagers. All in all he collected another $655,000. And off he went into the night. But he was back, just a few months later. This time he bought with him a $1 million bankroll. The amount consisted of $550,000 in cash, $310,000 in cashier’s checks, and $140,000 in gold Krugerrands (South African coin). Not being a man to mess around, he bet the entire million on a single roll. He then tossed a seven straight out. The entire amount was lost.

Within the month he killed himself with a handful of pills. Not exactly gambling with life, but the loss of a bet was the boatman’s gain.

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