Gambling has grown up to be one of the most popular form of entertainment in recent times. Although a lot of communities’ view gambling as a sort of taboo activity, not all people who partake in gambling necessarily belong to the lower strata of society. In fact, gambling is now seen to be a favorite pass-time among the elites in many societies. Particularly in the Indian market, because of the rise of internet users, we’ve seen a crazy rise of betting sites in India! But these five gamblers were born in such an ear when internet was not invented, so we’re going to stick to the traditional gamblers. So, out of the many influential figures in gambling that history has seen, Here are 5 of the greatest gamblers in history:

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881): One of the most famous novelists in the history of Russia, Fyodor Dostoevsky is renowned for writing novels such as “Crime and Punishment” and “The Idiot”. Dostoevsky also was a pathological gambler. In fact, many of his works were inspired by studying his addiction of gambling as well as games of chances. He lost so much money in gambling that he wrote “Crime and Punishment” and “The Gambler” as a means for rescuing himself from debt. “The Gambler” represents his gambling addiction perfectly and subtly hints at a man’s thirst for taking risks constantly. It was fortunate for Fyodor that online casino games were not invented in his time, otherwise he might have lost whole lot more than what he did.

2. Edward Thorp (1932-): The world knows Edward Thorp as a world-renowned mathematician. However, he’s also considered as a legend in the gambling community & a classic winner in live casino game. He is the very man who invented the notorious card counting technique in blackjack and has also used it efficiently in various situations as well. Although he knew nothing about card games when he initially started gambling, he was convinced that a player can gain mathematical advantages over his opponents in blackjack. He studied the games for hours at an end and simulated blackjack hands for hours at an end. The end result was him inventing the technique of card counting in 1962, which to this day is very difficult to identify in games.

3. Dominic LoRiggio (1953-): Known as “The Man with the Golden Arm” in gambling societies, Dominic LoRiggio is infamous for knowing how to get whatever number he prefers, whenever he prefers at a craps table by the simple roll of a dice. The technique has been honed over years of practice and involves throwing the dice in a certain way for it to stay in the air long enough for it to land gently by the walls of the table. This technique helped LoRiggio win thousands of dollars from casinos at an end. Like we said earlier, if Dominic was born in late 1990’s he could have also taken part in online casino games, and we know this is a big ‘if’! Let’s move on to the next one in our list…

4. Jonathan Duhamel (1987-): Only 32 years old, Jonathan Duhamel is already worth USD 32 million. Not only was he the first Canadian to enter the main event of the World Series Poker back in 2010, he was also the winner. Duhamel has won over USD 12 million ever since then.5. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1798): Although the world knows him as a womanizer and someone skilled in the art of seduction, Casanova was also a very skilled gambler. In 1757, he moved to France from Italy simply for the love of gambling where he amassed quite the fortune as as trustee of the National Lottery. Although he initially thought about being a gambler professionally, he abandoned that idea once he realized that he had no control over himself when gambling regardless of how bad his finances were