The Gambler #948502

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Gambler plunges readers into the feverish world of a Russian tutor losing himself at the roulette tables of a German spa town. Alexei Ivanovich serves a family of aristocrats teetering on bankruptcy, hopelessly infatuated with the beautiful but cruel Polina, who seems to toy with his affections while nursing her own desperate secrets. Everyone awaits news from Moscow—will the wealthy grandmother die and leave them her fortune? When she arrives in person instead, very much alive and ready to gamble away her millions, the family’s schemes collapse into chaos. Alexei becomes her accomplice at the casino, witnessing the hypnotic power of the roulette wheel to destroy fortunes in hours. Soon he’s caught in his own addiction, chasing the electrical thrill of risk even as it annihilates everything he values. Based on Dostoevsky’s own ruinous gambling obsession, this psychological masterpiece captures the madness of addiction with terrifying intimacy—the irrational conviction that the next bet will change everything, the self-destruction disguised as hope, and the dark ecstasy of surrendering to fate’s wheel.