B-O-B: I think we're more gamblers than you are. You are serious about it. To us it's a thrill. We get a kick.

Bulletman: We also get a kick about some of the comments you have made in your books that you're happy to leave with a dollar more than when you arrived.

Frank: That's how I feel. A win's a win. I don't really think of myself as a gambler so much as a David going up against a Goliath and, above all, I want to win. The thrill of gambling is secondary to the thrill of winning for me. I don't actually get that much of a thrill from the mere act of gambling.

B-O-B: That's where we are different. Winning is almost irrelevant to us. We do want the action. We're not out of control. We play within our bankroll but we go all out for the big score. That's the difference between you and us.
Frank: Big difference.

B-O-B: To you gambling is a challenge. To us it's a thrill. Your thrill is the challenge, our thrill is …the thrill.
Frank: Makes sense.

B-O-B: To us it's a pleasure. We get tremendous pleasure from gambling.
Bulletman: If we go to Atlantic City for two days and she plays for twelve hours a day, and we go home up or down, it doesn't matter.

B-O-B: I've had the best time. It's not whether I win or lose but the fact that I'm playing the game.

Frank: But you wouldn't think of yourself, yourselves as problem gamblers?
B-O-B: No, I'm actually comfortable going without it for lengths of time because I enjoy the anticipation of a trip too. It's almost as if the anticipation is half the fun. In the winter especially. I have that thing where in the winter you need extra light. Before I discovered gambling, I kid you not, winters were very rough on me. But having a trip to Atlantic City ahead of me, having that to look forward to, helps me tremendously.
Frank: Would you want a casino near you?

B-O-B: I don't think I'd like that. I like the anticipation. If the casino were right here, I don't think I'd like that. I wouldn't want to live in Vegas or Atlantic City because I think it would lose its thrill. I know you can go for two months at a time and play every day but I can't do that.

Frank: Well, I'm very controlled. But the challenge keeps me going. I don't lose that thrill of the challenge no matter how many weeks I've been doing it. And I don't have to win big. Of course, I like winning big but I take it as it comes.

B-O-B: The car ride down to Atlantic City is so much fun. It's who can get up earlier. We giggle, we sing. When we get to New Gretna [an exit that is before Atlantic City on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey], we'll shout out" "New Grrrreeeetna!"

Bulletman: And then when we get to the Atlantic City Expressway and you see the skyline, you wish you could just tilt the car back, press a button and zing! zoooom! up goes the car into the air and it heads right to the casino!

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• The Bride Of Bulletman Part12 (0)

Bulletman: The next thing is I close my eyes and then I wake up. I don't know what time it is. I don't even know where I am. She's gone. I look at the bureau. The $500 in chips is gone. I think, "Oh, God, she's taken all the money." The ice is all melted in the bucket. And all I can see is that white jacket with the black arm. I'm thinking that she's lost all the money. Then I sleep again. When I wake up I don't know what time it is but she comes back into the room. She looks miserable. She says: "I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again." She had lost the entire $500. And I'm thinking that she's become a monster.

B-O-B: So we're in the room and I'm taking care of him. I'm saying, "What can I do for you, honey. Let me know if there's anything I can do." And I'm thinking I want to get down to the machines. Finally, I convinced him to let me take some of the travelers checks and try my luck again. Since he was sick he hadn't used any of his. That's how I rationalized it. I had lost all of mine but we had all of his left.

Bulletman: She comes back about midnight, stays in the
room for about an hour and then goes down again. From then on I barely saw her.
B-O-B: One of the dealers, who had seen me playing everyday, asked me out on a date. I was insulted. I said: "Can't you see that I'm a married woman? I'm on my honeymoon." And he said: "Lady, I've seen you every day and I haven't seen you with a man yet!"

Bulletman: That was essentially our honeymoon. On the day we're leaving, I may have seen her about four hours the whole trip, I have to drag her away from the machines at the airport. The announcer is making the last call for our flight and she's still playing the machines. I had to literally drag her to the plane.
B-O-B: He did almost drag me.

Bulletman: We left coins in the trays. We barely made the flight.

Frank: And that was the creation of the monster?
Bulletman: And that's when the monster was truly born.
Frank: Yet, instead of becoming one of the hordes of losers, B-O-B actually became a winning player, or at least, a player who has a great chance of winning. She on the road to legendhood. Why's that?

B-O-B: Well, it didn't happen overnight. And it wasn't smooth.
Bulletman: It was an evolution. The evolution of a video-poker maniac. A year later we want to spend our anniversary in Atlantic City. Atlantic City was just geting casino gambling.

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