He set the credits and pay lines and leaned on the button. The screen spun and spun down to $21, until he hit a free-spin feature and the machine produced a stern ker-ching sound, then an electronic whistle. Lucky, slumped on his stool, let his head fall into his hands. Those fifteen free spins took him up to $76. He hit the button three more times: another feature, and another, and the accumulation paid $315—a sign to quit the gaming machines.

That morning his mood had shifted, and he couldn’t recover it, and he felt for the first time uneasy about his plan to win money on Wheel of Fortune and start a restaurant and leave something behind for anyone who still loved him. The Wheel audition had been simple. In Lucky the show’s producers and casting director had seen what they called the ‘human interest factor’. That is, the fact he had founded and lost a restaurant franchise.

In a few days’ time he would be taping the first episode. But that morning he woke up and saw the hopelessness of his goal: he wasn’t about to win that TV show jackpot. He wouldn’t get the money together. Banks wouldn’t lend to him, or at least not enough to start a small business. They considered him unreliable, too old, his name devalued, his fire gone to puff. Maybe gambling was a medium through which Lucky and Money could still speak to each other. With a good bet he could briefly overcome his ill fortune, his bad decisions. Through gambling he’d once addressed his self-loathing, his overwhelming sense of failure, which was compounded by the inevitable losses he experienced when betting. Today Lucky told himself he’d been good. He hadn’t gambled in almost two years. He deserved a celebration.

In the bar outside the gaming room he drank soda water and played his lucky numbers in Keno. The numbers were old artefacts: birthdays, addresses, and figures with power that he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t get away from these numbers any more than he could run from his nickname. And he didn’t want to leave them behind. He played them. He lost and kept playing them—small wagers. To use other numbers would make him feel separated from the bet, like he was pretending to be someone else.

2.