Gambler

Whoever reads the novel The Gambler by Dostoevsky notices that it bears to some extent the marks of autobiography, and we do not mean that the writer depicted in the novel scenes from his private life, nor do we mean that some circumstances of this life were reflected in the novel. Dostoevsky was an emotionally passionate person, and gambling in roulette was one of the things he loved most and for a long time. He knew the deepest secrets of this game not only technically, but he also experienced firsthand the rise and fall, the twists of fate, and the succession of hope and despair. Sometimes he would win huge amounts, but in the gambling discipline, he would lose them down to the last penny, so that he would not have anything left to settle the hotel’s tea and candle bills.