Artie Lange - Wanna Bet?: A Degenerate Gamblers Guide to Living on the Edge

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For Valdastri, Falato, Meneve, Attell, Pete and Judd, Rich Super, Jen, Norm and Frank S., of course, Mom and Stace. I love you all. And Anthony Bozza. Special thanks to Anthony C and Keith. And to Sherrod Small, Im so sorry I havent called you back. When my counselor in rehab told me to stay away from triggers, I misunderstood him.

When you think about it, and lately I have, everything we do comes down to risk. Where you end up in life is all about what you are willing to do to get there. And no one gets anywhere without gambling a bit. You can go on all you want about making your own destiny by visualizing your goals, you can read The Secret , you can listen to self-help tapes. I encourage those of you who believe in that bullshit to keep it up, because it leaves a lot of room at the front of the line for the people with brains who believe in logic. Those people know that what you do when your life comes to a crossroad is what determines who you are. Those moments are no time to be timid, because how much you bet can make all the difference in the path your life takes.

This might sound very simplistic or black and white to some of you, but if you see it that way, youre missing the point. Risk is important, but it isnt the only factor here. Let me put it another way. If your time on earth were to be broken down into a series of stats as if you were a baseball player, then the risks you take would be counted as one of the most important numbers you could ever post up. It wouldnt be the main number that defines your career, but it would say a lot about you. Risk wouldnt be your batting average if you were a great hitter, or your ERA if you were a great pitcher. The amount of risk you leveraged in your life would be your stolen bases or how many runners you picked off. It would be the mystery figure that slid under the radar but upon further review told the story of exactly how you played the game.

That number explains what you will do when faced with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Whether you swing for the fences or bunt, no great success comes without great risk. If it were any other way, it wouldnt even be a game; it would be batting practice.

If you know nothing about me, then start here: I love risk, and I chase it because that rush is what keeps me going. I have taken completely comfortable situations and turned them upside down for the risk of it. Thats a selfish thing to do, but it has to happen, because instability is what drives my creativity. This might seem like an excuse, but its not; its self-knowledge. I know that chaos is what fuels me. I am an engine that runs on it, and I keep that tank topped-up better than I do the tank in my car. Ive also found that life has a funny way of keeping things unstable for me. Every time Ive felt like Ive had things figured out, life has thrown me a curveball, because thats what life does.

Ive missed a lot of sinking curveballs, by the way, but those whiffs aside, when I talk about risk, Im talking about the greatest rush Ive ever knownand Ive known a lot of them. Its a very powerful and specific high. Its not the rush you experience when you go all-in and hit 21 at the blackjack table. Sure, thats great, but thats not it. Its not like the high you get if you win your first bet either. Thats the intoxication of beginners luck, which is actually a curse, because that will get you hooked for good if youre so inclined. I should know; I won my first bet and Ive never looked back. What Im talking about runs even deeper than that, though. It comes from a place where losing might be just as fun as winning, so in a way, you dont care about what happens as much as you care about the bet itself. Depending on how boring your life is, in some cases, losing can be even better than winning.

I placed my first bet with a bookie when I was fifteen years old. This might sound a bit early to some of you, but where I grew up in Newark, New Jersey, betting with bookies was a regular thing. My friend who was my age had an older brother who bet on sports every week, like all the older kids did. It was cool and exciting, and who didnt want to be as cool as the older kids growing up? Anyway, he got us in on the action, and once he did, I was done.

The first bet I ever placed was in January 1985, on Super Bowl XIX, the 49ers versus the Dolphins. All my buddies liked Miami and Dan Marino. Following their lead seemed boring to me, so I did the illogical thing and bet on Joe Montana and the Niners. My friends thought I was crazy. They also thought I was an asshole because I was a Giants fan, and Giants fans never, ever rooted for the Niners in the 80s. It was rivalry so deep that we didnt want them to even win a fucking coin toss. In the end, the Niners blew Miami out 3816, and just like that, I won my first bet and I was hooked on gambling.

Winning your first bet is literally the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Its a brief victory that gives the winner a false sense of invincibility. I put fifty dollars on that game, which means that Id get a hundred dollars if I won. To bet fifty dollars, you had to pay fifty-five dollars to cover the five-dollar vig, which is a service fee to the bookie. I won the bet and was handed a hundred bucks, which made me feel like Id won a hundred dollars. Thats the mirage: winning completely erased the memory that my initial fifty dollars was included in the prize money. It wasnt even fifty dollars! Whether I won or lost, the bookie kept the five-dollar vig, so all I could ever win was forty-five dollars. I didnt see that at all; I just thought, This is great; I just won a hundred bucks!

That was the start of it all for me, and it wont ever end, but Ive come to terms with that. Because, you see, gambling on sports is fun, and Ive done plenty of it, but Ive moved on. When I was making real money, in the 1990s, I really did some damage to my income, which is why Ive made about ten million over the years but am worth around two if Im being generous. How did I do it? Well, more than once I bet twenty-five thousand on the coin toss at the Super Bowl. The odds are literally fifty-fifty, its pure chance, which is what I love about that bet. Anyway, that kind of betting stopped doing it for me, so I moved on to a much more serious type of wager: gambling with intangible assets, like my life.

This type of risk and the thrill that comes with it is dangerous and something most people cant fathom when I try to explain it to them. If you dont get it, dont feel bad. You should feel happy, because if what Im saying sounds strange, theres a good chance that youre normal, adjusted, sane, and functional. Dont change who you are, because if youre curious about this state of mind, worry no moreyou can live vicariously through me! Ill do my best to explain it to you in this book, but if you still dont get it, just watch the headlines, because Im living it every day. All you need to do is follow me on Twitter @artiequitter to see examples of my risk condition in real time.

When I look back on my life, which is something you do when youre my age and realistically shouldnt be alive, its miraculous that my philosophy has worked for me. There are many reasons for that, the first of which is that show business loves second chances (and thirds and fourths), which is how Im still able to buy into this craps game at all. The best way to explain what drives me is that, in simplest terms, Im into a different type of rush. I dont feel like Ive done anything worthwhile until Ive achieved something after risking everything, which comes from a place of not caring whether I win or lose, succeed or fail. I mean, sure I like to succeed, but success without a risk or struggle doesnt seem honest to me.