
The Gambler
How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
About this listen
The rags-to-riches story of one of America's wealthiest and least-known financial giants, self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian - the daring aviator, movie mogul, risk taker, and business tycoon who transformed Las Vegas and Hollywood to become one of the leading financiers in American business.
Kerkorian combined the courage of a World War II pilot, the fortitude of a scrappy boxer, the cunning of an inscrutable poker player, and an unmatched genius for making deals. He never put his name on a building, but when he died, he owned almost every major hotel and casino in Las Vegas. He envisioned and fostered a new industry - the leisure business. Three times he built the biggest resort hotel in the world. Three times he bought and sold the fabled MGM Studios, forever changing the way Hollywood does business.
His early life began as far as possible from a place on the Forbes List of Billionaires when he and his Armenian immigrant family lost their farm to foreclosure. He was four. They arrived in Los Angeles penniless and moved often, staying one step ahead of more evictions. Young Kirk learned English on the streets of LA, made pennies hawking newspapers, and dropped out after eighth grade. How he went on to become one of the richest and most generous men in America - his net worth as much as $20 billion - is a story largely unknown to the world. That's because what Kerkorian valued most was his privacy. His very private life turned to tabloid fodder late in life when a former professional tennis player falsely claimed that the 85-year-old billionaire fathered her child.
In this engrossing biography, investigative reporter William C. Rempel digs deep into Kerkorian's long-guarded history to introduce a man of contradictions - a poorly educated genius for deal-making, an extraordinarily shy man who made the boldest of business ventures, a careful and calculating investor who was willing to bet everything on a single roll of the dice.
Unlike others of his status and importance, Kerkorian made few public appearances and strenuously avoided personal publicity. His friends and associates, however, were some of the biggest names in business, entertainment, and sports - among them Howard Hughes, Ted Turner, Steve Wynn, Michael Milken, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley, Mike Tyson, and Andre Agassi.
When he died in 2015, two years shy of the century mark, Kerkorian had outlived many of his closest friends and associates. Now, Rempel meticulously pieces together revealing fragments of Kerkorian's life, collected from diverse sources - war records, business archives, court documents, news clippings, and the recollections and recorded memories of longtime pals and relatives. In The Gambler, Rempel illuminates this unknown, self-made man and his inspiring legacy as never before.
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In 1956 two Bell Labs scientists discovered the scientific formula for getting rich. One was mathematician Claude Shannon, neurotic father of our digital age, whose genius is ranked with Einstein's. The other was John L. Kelly Jr., a Texas-born gun-toting physicist. Together they applied the science of information theory - the basis of computers and the Internet - to the problem of making as much money as possible as fast as possible.
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Could be MUCH shorter
- By Michael on 11-08-17
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The Baseball 100
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 30 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski that tells the story of the sport through the remarkable lives of its 100 greatest players. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than 200 years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?”
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Just OK. Too Tangential & Distracting
- By Matthew R. on 01-21-23
By: Joe Posnanski
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The First Billion is the Hardest
- Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future
- By: T. Boone Pickens
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From a businessman who is extraordinarily humble yet is considered one of the world's most visionary, The First Billion Is the Hardest is both a riveting account of a life spent pulling off improbable triumphs and a report back from the front of the global energy and natural-resource wars - of vital interest to anyone who has a stake in America's future.
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A Guide for a U.S. National Energy Policy.
- By HuskerFan on 10-20-08
By: T. Boone Pickens
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Gambler
- Secrets from a Life at Risk
- By: Billy Walters
- Narrated by: Billy Walters
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Anybody can get lucky. Nobody controls the odds like Billy Walters. Widely regarded as “the Michael Jordan of sports betting,” Walters is a living legend in Las Vegas and among sports bettors worldwide. With an unmatched winning streak of thirty-six consecutive years, Walters has become fabulously wealthy by placing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in gross wagers, including one Super Bowl bet of $3.5 million alone. Competitors desperate to crack his betting techniques have tried hacking his phones, cloning his beepers, rifling through his trash, and bribing his employees.
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Good but
- By Amazon Customer on 08-30-23
By: Billy Walters
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Gambling Man
- The Secret Story of the World's Greatest Disruptor, Masayoshi Son
- By: Lionel Barber
- Narrated by: Keong Sim
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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As Wall Street swooned and boomed through the last decade, our livelihoods have—now more than ever—come to rely upon the good sense and risk appetites of a few standout investors. And amidst the BlackRocks, Vanguards, and Berkshire Hathaways stands arguably the most iconoclastic of them all: SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In Gambling Man, the first Western biography of Son, the self-professed unicorn hunter, we go behind the scenes of the world’s most monied halls of power in New York, Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Saudi Arabia, and beyond.
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A deep look into the life of a man who doesn’t quit!
- By JoeShon Monroe on 04-22-25
By: Lionel Barber
What listeners say about The Gambler
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- Anonymous User
- 11-03-18
Great book
Excellent excellent book ! Very interesting and never knew how great a business man he was .
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- J. Hastings
- 09-25-22
Great guy.
Excellent story and performance about a great guy. I wish I had known Kirk Kerkorian.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-30-22
WOW
A must listen!
Fantastic story, lessons, journey and human being.
hopefully more people can be like him.
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- 100%
- 03-20-21
Fabulous story of a great man
This is an inspirational story, filled with many great business lessons. After hearing the story I felt inspired, motivated and ready to take on the world!
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- david
- 06-08-19
One of the Greatest Dealmakers
Very detailed about Kirk's life and what shaped it. You also get a real idea of what drove him in business and why he stayed out of the spotlight. You will learn how each business was an extension of the previous one. It was fascinating to learn how he was such a brilliant deal maker and business builder. Yet, made a major blunder in his personal life in his later years.
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- Dave H
- 06-15-24
The coolest person you have never heard of...
Extremely refreshing to read about a person who accomplished everything and didn't need the spotlight. Highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good biography.
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- Dennis M Danzik
- 07-31-24
A Fantastic Book - A Great Learning Experience
A steady and wonderful flow of information on a very unique man and his life journey, lifestyle, challenges and success. we can all learn from Kirk.
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- John D. Simone
- 08-18-23
Excellent book!
Kirk was an incredible man and defined how to do business the right way. Good guys DO finish first!
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- AVJ
- 10-27-23
Good book, well written and read.
Not an authorized biography obviously but that doesn't seem to be an issue as the author did enough research. Not a hagiography either.
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- Caleb S.
- 12-20-23
Story You Could Read Again and Again
I’ve read this book at least 5 or 6 times. It doesn’t get boring. A movie couldn’t do the story justice. So don’t wait for a movie, just read the book. Kirk did it all. Started from 0 and went to billionaire. But what’s so fun is that he goes from one industry to another and to another and is successful. Always doing it with a big heart stopping gamble.
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