‘Gambler’ McCain can”t keep away from craps!

NEW YORK - Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain has an affinity for craps, according to Randall Lane”"”s new book “”"The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane.”"”

Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice.

Players may wager money against each other (street craps) or a bank (casino craps). Because it requires little equipment, street craps can be played in informal settings.

Craps developed from a simplification of the Old English game hazard. Its origins are complex and may date to the Crusades, later being influenced by French gamblers.

What was to become the modern American version of the game was brought to New Orleans by Bernard Xavier Philippe de marigny de Mandeville, scion of wealthy Louisiana landowners, a gambler, and politician.

Recalling his eye-rolling night playing craps with the hard-gambling Arizona senator, Lane, CEO and editor-in-chief of Doubledown Media and editor-at-large for The Daily Beast, said he encountered the senator at the end of 2005 at the American Magazine Conference at the El Conquistador hotel in Puerto Rico.

The New York Daily News quoted him as saying further that McCain was slated to give the conference”"”s keynote address the next morning, but he (Lane) sensed McCain was not interested in turning in early.

“You could tell by the way McCain played that he knows his craps. This was a guy who wanted action on every roll,” said Lane.

“The old Navy pilot was throwing around a staggering pile of chips with the zeal of a Fleet Week sailor,” he added

And, he was prepared to swab the deck with anyone who messed with his mojo.

Shortly before Lane joined the dice game, McCain had been involved in an “altercation” - a yelling match with a woman, who, another player told the journalist, had invaded the candidate”"”s “space.”

As the wagering progressed, McCain was initially “a maestro of the felt, intently covering each roll with hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars,” writes Lane, who was winning, too.

After 90 minutes, the author was up about 700 dollars and McCain was sitting on winnings of “several thousand.”

Having beaten the odds, Lane wanted to walk away. “I really wanted McCain to walk away, too, because he”"”d accumulated a tidy haul, and because I liked the idea of a President who knew when to leave a surplus alone,” he writes. (ANI)