Readers who dally a bit above their means experience an easy, reflexive sympathy while at the same time vicariously living the cheap excitement of charging fancy dinners, cashmere sweaters and Prada shoes. It's armchair spending. Similarly, good writers like the Barthelmes and Martinez convey the dizzying rush of winning to readers sitting safely at home. The cards and the dealer conspire to make the player rich. The dealer busts.
Chips stack into piles.
The reader is right there at the table. And then, of course, in a couple of bets, the gambling starts to go horribly wrong. Without hand-wringing, both books ruminate on the nature of compulsion and the psychology of gambling. Later, the same thing happened to Steve and his wife. Neither of us had any idea how much those first jackpots would eventually cost.