Paul Feagan has just published his first book. Part travel memoir, part gambling diary and part argument with mathematics, Wheel of Fortune is for anyone who’s ever believed, even briefly, that this system might actually work.

Available in paperback or e-book from Amazon, the following is an excerpt:

Preface

This isn’t really a gambling instruction book.

I mean, yes, there’s gambling in it. There’s a roulette system too — it’s in an annex at the back. So, if you’re only here to beat the wheel, skip ahead. I won’t be offended. Use the system. Test it out. Maybe you’ll hit a winning streak. Maybe you’ll have to remortgage your garden shed. Either way, it’s your problem now.

But, if you’d like to know how the system was born on a ‘jolly boys’ trip to Vegas, then stick around. I’m Paul and this is the story of how I beat roulette.

Let’s begin.

Chapter 1 – Diddly Diddly

Dan had figured out that if we booked flight tickets Dublin – London – Las Vegas return, we could fly Virgin Upper Class for half the usual price, something about hidden city ticketing and less air passenger duty. None of us lived in Dublin so we’d need to start our trip a day early and fly to Ireland as cheaply as possible.

Gary and his brother, Ben, found cheap flights from London Gatwick. Dan used some frequent flyer points to fly from Heathrow. I flew from Prague in the Czech Republic.

Reunited in the Premier Inn Dublin Airport hotel, Gary declared that staying in the airport hotel the whole time would be “a betrayal of the culture.”

“What culture?” Dan asked, without looking up from his phone.

Gary pointed vaguely at the ceiling, which may or may not have represented Ireland. “Guinness, fiddles, craic. We’re in Ireland, mate. We’re not sitting in the Premier Inn watching Sky Sports News like a bunch of shut-ins.”

So, we ordered a taxi. Destination: Temple Bar.

Now, we knew it was a tourist trap. Everyone knows Temple Bar is a tourist trap. But that night, we decided to embrace it — lean in, pay too much and maybe get hit in the face by a bodhrán. We figured we’d get a couple of pints, soak up the atmosphere, then get a decent night’s sleep before the long haul to Vegas.

That was the plan.

We walked into the first pub that looked warm and loud. Inside, a man with a beard the size of a raccoon was violently fiddling his way through The Galway Girl while his mate on the bodhrán looked like he was both playing percussion and attempting to settle an old score with it.

Gary turned to me, nodded thoughtfully and said, “Proper diddly diddly.”

He said it like a respected music critic. Like he’d just discovered a new genre between reggae and jazz.

We ordered four pints of Guinness. The bartender didn’t flinch. Just tapped the till and said, “That’ll be thirty-nine euro.”

Dan made a noise like a pension fund collapsing.

We huddled at a high table near the stage. Ben took a sip of his pint, paused and said, “It tastes better here.”

Gary nodded sagely. “It’s the altitude.”

“What?”

“Guinness is better closer to sea level. Fact.”

Dan leaned over. “The brewery is just around the corner.”

Gary ignored him. “Poured slower here. You can taste the patience.”

The band launched into The Wild Rover for the third time and by now the crowd was doing that thing where they all sing the chorus but slightly off-beat and always a semitone sharp. A stag do in matching shirts shouted the wrong lyrics on purpose. One of them had a harmonica but clearly didn’t know how to play it.

Gary, two sips from the end of his pint, stood up and announced:

“Lads. I can feel it. We’ve got Vegas in our bones. This is our warm-up set. Ireland’s just the pre-game.”

Several expensive drinks later and back in a taxi, Gary slurred his final review of Temple Bar:

“Best Guinness I’ve ever had. Nine out of ten. Loses a point for robbery.”

Dan opened his phone’s Notes app and typed the following:

Dublin: Expensive pints, diddly-diddly risk high, Guinness inflation zone. Avoid on future system trips.

Gary missed breakfast the next morning.

We agreed to meet at 6:30am in the hotel lobby. Quiet breakfast, shuttle bus back to Dublin Airport for the flight to London — the first leg of our clever, price-hacked journey to Vegas.

Three of us were there. Bleary-eyed but present.

Gary… wasn’t there.

At 7:20am, just as Dan was saying “We need to leave in three minutes or I’m checking in without him,” Gary wandered in with a big suitcase rolling behind him — the kind you take for a three-week safari.

Dan looked up.

“What the fuck?”

Gary gave us his usual shrug. The one that somehow meant “What? I’m early in my own mind.”

“What is that?” asked Dan.

“My bag.”

“No. No, no. What is that,” Dan said again, gesturing at the suitcase like it was a weapon. “You’re not checking a bag.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not coming back to Dublin,” Dan hissed.

“Yeah…?”

“We’re ditching the last leg of the ticket,” I added, trying to help.

Gary blinked. “Wait — so?”

Dan rubbed his eyes like he was trying to delete Gary from his brain. “If you check a bag, it goes to the final destination.”

“Ohhh.” Gary nodded. “But we’re not going back to Dublin.”

“Yes,” we all said in dead unison.

“That’s why we can’t check a bag.”

“Right…”

There was a pause.

Then Gary asked, “But… can I take the bag to Vegas and then just not bring it back?”

Dan sighed. “Yeah, that will work.”