LOSING MARIPOSA : The Memoir of a Compulsive Gambler - Softcover

As a community leader, Doug Little incredibly gambled the economic salvation of his town on a world-class casino while he himself was hopelessly addicted, betting feverishly to win back the thousands of dollars he had 'borrowed' from the eight bank accounts he controlled. Little spins his whirlwind tale from his desperate midnight visits to Casino Rama, vividly recounting the heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping allure of the roulette wheel, the flip-snap of a card at the black-jack tables, and the ding-ding-ding of the reds, bells, and whistles of the shot machines. He then confesses the despair of the parking lot and the life-threatening rides home, broke again, another 10,000 dollars of other people's money gone. Losing Mariposa is a cautionary tale of obsession and escape, a compelling story told with brutal honesty but not without irony. Told in the first person from the last time Little gambled, it recounts that terrible day, hour by hour, both in terms of what was happening and what he was thinking and feeling.

His story provides a rare first-hand chronicle of the devastation wrought by the addiction to gamble, a social problem growing throughout the industrialised world and is now reaching epidemic proportions.