It’s 1:00 a.m., Las Vegas time, and you’ve been hammering at the casino all day and all night. Blackjacks drop as if you have control over the cards. Instantly seven-ing out at the craps table is something that happens to other people. You’re not controlling the dice but you may as well be.
It’s not everybody who happily bets enormous sums of money in some of the ritziest casinos on earth – and gets asked to stop playing. This happened to Don Johnson and, along the way, he became a gambling-world legend.
Michael Kaplan is a journalist based in New York City. He has written extensively on gambling for publications such as Wired, Playboy, Cigar Aficionado, New York Post and New York Times. He is the author of four books including Aces and Kings: Inside Stories and Million-Dollar Strategies from Poker’s Greatest Players.
He’s been known to do a bit of gambling when the timing seems right.