Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of the world’s greatest novelists, and for eight years of his life he was addicted to roulette. It was during this time that he wrote Crime and Punishment.

The following is a summary of his life, along with the details of his gambling addiction based on his private letters and a book he wrote called The Gambler.

Life.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born on 20th October 1821 near Moscow.

From an early age he took an interest in books and writing, but at the age of 16 his father sent him to an engineering college. His mother died that same year, and two years later his father died as well. Despite losing both parents and having the desire to write, he continues with engineering college and graduates at the age of 22.

Fyodor was now free to pursue his literary career.

At the age of 25 he writes and releases his first book, Poor Folk, which is written in a unique format where two lovers write letters to one another. The book is a great success, and it propels him on to the literary scene in Russia. However, his second book The Double (written that same year), is met with deeply negative criticism and he is ridiculed by those who once praised him.

Then at the age of 28, he is arrested and sentenced to death.

He had joined a small group of intellectuals two years prior called the Petrashevsky circle. The group discussed social and political topics, and a smaller group within it secretly campaigned for the freedom of the serfs (similar to slaves). However, the government infiltrated the group and arrested all of the members, including Fyodor.

He spends a year in solitary confinement, before finally being sentenced to execution by rifle.

On the day of his exection he is led out to the place where he is going to be shot. The first three prisoners are led out and tied to the posts. He is sixth in line. He realizes that he has only minutes of his life left.

But just before the order to fire, the execution is halted.

His sentenced is commuted to hard labour at the last moment. But still, he had sincerely believed that he was going to die.

He spends the next 4 years of his life in Siberia, living alongside criminals and peasants in utterly grim conditions. He cannot write during this time, and lives only to survive. However, at the age of 33, his four years of hard labour come to an end, and he moves on to indefinite service in the Russian army instead. Then after a further five years (and with the help of friends), Dostoevsky is finally able to leave the army as a free man.

He is now 38.

He restarts his literary career by writing the House of the Dead, which is a dark account of his time spent in the prison camp in Siberia. This is published a year after his release, and quickly brings him more fame than his first book. He also starts publishing a literary magazine called Time with his brother, which provides them both with financial stability. Things are going good, and he travels to Europe for the first time a few years later in 1862 at the age of 41.

But the following year the magazine is forced to close. There had been a misunderstanding with the government about an article he and his brother had published concerning Russia. Dostoevsky travels to Europe again in the summer nonetheless, and experiences his first loss at the roulette wheel. He is reduced to pawning his possessions to survive, and writes letters (Letter 2) to friends and family requesting money.

Whilst back in Russia in April 1864, his first wife dies. And two months later, so does his brother.

I have been crushed by life.

A cold, lonely old age and epilepsy are all that lie ahead for me.

He invests all of the money he has in to the new magazine Epoch that he and his brother had started before he died. He also unwisely assumes all his brother’s debts, which means his financial freedom is tied to the success of the magazine. The overwhelming debt and workload of keeping the magazine running shatters his health, and the magazine collapses a year later due to lack of funds.

In his desperation, Fyodor signs a merciless contract with a publisher named Stellovsky that requires him to deliver a book within a year, else he will lose the rights to anything he writes for the next nine years. Using the funds from this contract, he escapes to Europe.

He revisits the roulette tables upon his return to Europe. He has the hope of winning enough money to free himself from his debts and to return to Russia. And as a result, he loses all the money he has.

This marks the start of the darkest period of his life.

It’s during this time he conceives the idea for Crime and Punishment; a story about a man who convinces himself that murdering an old lady is a good idea, and the subsequent horrors of living with his actions. Whilst writing this book he also writes The Gambler in the space of a month (to satisfy his contract with Stellovsky), which documents his experiences of gambling and is essentially a narration of his own addiction to roulette.

The following years are the most chaotic of his life. He struggles with living abroad, his worsening epilepsy, and having to work within the throes of a gambling addiction that regularly reduces him to despair.

But in his strife to achieve financial freedom, he writes three of his greatest literary works: Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), and Demons (1871). And it's in 1871, after a foreboding dream and another cutting loss at the roulette wheel, that he resolves to never gamble again.

And this time he keeps his word.

He spends the remaining years of his life from 1871 at home in Russia. These are comparatively calm years, although his worsened epilepsy means that he is often unable to write for days or weeks at a time. Nonetheless, in 1880, at the age of 59 he begins releasing his final book The Brothers Karamazov, to great critical acclaim.

He sends the last section of the book to his publisher in November 1880.

Two months later, on 28th January 1881, Fyodor Dostoevsky died.

Map.

The following map shows the places Dostoevsky stayed whilst living in Europe, along with the locations of the towns he visited for playing roulette.

The most notorious location for his gambling was in Wiesbaden.

His home was St Petersburg.

Timeline.

|- 1821: Birth
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|- 1837: Mother dies. Sent to Academy of Engineering.
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|- 1839: Father dies.
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|- 1843: Graduates from engineering school.
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|- 1846: Poor Folk.
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|- 1849: Imprisoned and sentenced to death.
|- 1850: Starts hard labour in Siberia.
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|- 1854: Finishes hard labour and continues sentence in military.
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|- 1859: Resigns from military, sentence is over.
|- 1860: Restarts literary career. House of the Dead.
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|- 1862: Travels to Europe.
|- 1863: Travels to Europe. First sign of gambling addiction.
|- 1864: Notes from the Underground. Wife dies. Brother dies.
|- 1865: Financial ruin. Travels to Europe to escape creditors.
|- 1866: Crime and Punishment, The Gambler.
|- 1987: Marries second wife. Leaves Russia for Europe to escape creditors.
|- 1868: The Idiot.
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|- 1871: Demons. Stops gambling. Returns to Russia.
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|- 1880: The Brothers Karamazov.
|- 1881: Death
 

Key:
| = Years in Academy of Engineering.
| = Years in Siberian exile.
| = Years of gambling addiction.
Book. (Not all books are included - just the major and relevant ones.)

Gambling Addiction.

Dostoevsky wrote many letters to family and friends during his lifetime, and some of those letters contain personal accounts of his gambling addiction.

During this time the majority of his gambling took place at spa resorts (which commonly had casinos at the time) along the river Rhine in Germany, most notably; Wiesbaden, Bad Homburg, and Baden-Baden.

Below are excerpts from some of the letters he sent between 1863 and 1871.

Letter 1 (1863)

This is the first letter that shows Dostoevsky’s interest in gambling.

In this letter to his wife’s sister, he begins by telling her about winning money in Wiesbaden. This will become a frequent destination for him over the next eight years.

He describes his approaching to playing, and how he believes he is able to beat the game.

Later in the letter Dostoevsky tells Varvara that he will be sending her some of his winnings, which he does.

However, a week later he gambles and loses the rest of his winnings, and asks her for some of the money back.

Note: It’s during this trip abroad that Dostoevsky conceives the idea for his novel The Gambler. Both a Frenchman and an English lord appear as characters in the book. However, the book is not written until 1866 (three years later).

Letter 2 (1863)

This letter is written around the same time as asking for some of his winnings back from his wife’s sister.

It is written in reply after informing his brother about his gambling losses (and also asking him for money). At this time he is in Turin, and has recently pawned his watch for money. He is travelling with his mistress who has also pawned her ring.

In the main body of the letter he explains to his brother how he managed to lose so much of his money at the roulette wheel.

Letter 3 (1865)

At this time Dostoevsky’s brother had died the year before, and Dostoevsky is left with heavy debts due to their failed magazine.

He travels again to Europe to escape his creditors, and has done so using money he acquired by signing the risky Stellovsky contract. This contract would see him losing the rights to his work for nine years if he doesn’t produce a book in a fixed amount of time (which eventually ends up being The Gambler).

In this letter he appeals to Turgenev for money, who is an old literary friend who he is on good terms with at the time. He starts by explaining his dire financial situation due to the magazine's failure, before swiftly moving on to his request for money because of further losses at the roulette wheel.

This is one of Dostoevsky’s shorter letters.

Turgenev sends him the money.

Letter 4 (1867)

By now Dostoevsky has recently married his new wife Anna, a stenographer who helped him to finish writing The Gambler (to satisfy his contract) whilst also in the middle of writing Crime and Punishment.

In the spring of this year they both travel to Europe to escape continued harassment from Dostoevsky’s creditors, but this time on a more permanent basis. During this time he frequently leaves his new wife to visit gambling casinos in an attempt to win enough money to free himself of his debts and return to Russia.

The following is one of many letters he sends to his new wife about his losses at roulette.

Letter 5 (1867)

Dostoevsky continues to lose money at the roulette wheel whilst living abroad.

This (longer that usual) letter is sent to another old literary friend, and for the first time feels like a confession of his addiction to gambling.

Later in the letter he asks Maivov to send him money.

Letter 6 (1871)

Dostoevsky and his wife remain in Europe after four years abroad. He has completed his books The Idiot and Demons in what has been the most chaotic period of his literary career. But now they are both making preparations to return to Russia.

However, Dostoevsky returns once again to Wiesbaden to play roulette, and loses. In this raw and heartfelt letter to his wife, he confesses to his loss and promises that he will never gamble again.

Dostoevsky never gambles again.

The Gambler. (Book, 1866)

The Gambler was written by Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1866. He wrote the book whilst in the middle of writing Crime and Punishment.

Dostoevsky had the idea to write a novel about gambling in 1863 after his first experience of losing money at roulette.

Just as House of the Dead attracted the attention of the public because it was a portrayal of convicts, who had never been portrayed graphically by anyone before, so this story is bound to attract attention as a graphic and very detailed representation of gambling at roulette.

―Fyodor Dostoevsky (Letter to N. N. Strakhov, 1863)

He intended for it to be a full-length novel like his other works, but he ended up using the idea three years later as a way to fulfill a contract on short notice instead.

You see, due to financial problems in 1865, Dostoevsky agreed to a dangerous contract with a publisher named Stellovsky, where he was required to provide a book by 1 November 1866 or else lose the rights to his work for the next nine years. He had not written anything by October, so he quickly wrote the book (~60,000 words) within a space of a month, and handed it over on 31 October 1866.

The story is heavily based on his own experiences of gambling, and focuses on his time spent in Wiesbaden (Germany) in 1863.

Plot.

This short book is about a wealthy Russian family on holiday at a town called Roulettenburg in Germany.

The family is facing financial ruin (not gambling related), and are awaiting the death of their elderly Granny so that they can inherit her wealth. However, during the course of their stay their Granny makes a surprise visit to the town, and proceeds to lose millions at the roulette table, leaving the rest of the family facing destitution.

The story is told from the perspective of the main character Alexey, who is a tutor employed by the family. Like many of Dostoevsky’s characters, he is deeply interesting yet not entirely likeable as a person.

Later in the book Alexey becomes addicted to roulette himself, and loses sight of the girl he loves in the process.

Quotes.

Although the main focus of the story revolves around the relationships in the family, there are a handful of vivid chapters describing roulette. In between the characters and storyline, Dostoevsky reveals his own feelings toward roulette and his understanding of gambling addiction.

I speak to relieve my conscience.

The following are quotes from chapters that have a focus on gambling.

Chapter 2.

In this chapter the main character Alexey visits the casino to play roulette for the first time.

I had to study the game; for, in spite of the thousand descriptions of roulette which I had read so eagerly, I understood absolutely nothing of its working, until I saw it myself.

He briefly questions the lack of virtue in winning money as opposed to earning it.

And why should gambling be worse than any other means of making money — for instance, commerce?

He gives his impressions upon entering the gambling saloon.

In the first place it all struck me as so dirty, somehow, morally horrid and dirty. I am not speaking at all of the greedy, uneasy faces which by dozens, even hundreds, crowd round the gambling tables. I see absolutely nothing dirty in the wish to win as quickly and as much as possible.

There was no sort of magnificence in these trashy rooms, and not only were there no piles of gold lying on the table, but there was hardly any gold at all.

He describes the behaviour of gamblers, as well as the differences between them.

What was particularly ugly at first sight, in all the rabble round the roulette table, was the respect they paid to that pursuit, the solemnity and even reverence with which they all crowded around the tables.

It is most charming when people do not stand on ceremony with one another, but act openly and above board.

A real gentleman should not show excitement even if he loses his whole fortune.

Chapter 4.

In this chapter the Alexey plays roulette on behalf of Polina, who is a member of the family that he has fallen in love with.

He describes his approach to playing:

I kept quiet and looked on; it seemed to me that calculation meant very little, and had by no means the importance attributed to it by some players.

I drew one conclusion which I believe to be correct, that is, though there is no system, there really is a sort of order in the sequence of casual chances — and that, of course, is very strange.

After winning money through a series of successful bets, he begins to find himself engaged in the game:

At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it.

This compulsion leads him to lose all the money he had won up to that point.

Later, when being chastised by other family members for playing roulette, he defends his actions by declaring how the accumulation of wealth by honest toil is a vice in itself:

I can't endure honest people whom one is afraid to go near.

I want money for myself, and I don't look upon myself as something subordinate to capital and necessary to it.

Chapter 10.

Alexey accompanies Granny as she goes to the casino for the first time. Granny starts playing roulette, and decides to bet on zero. She loses at first, before winning two times in a row (with the second winning bet being much larger than the first).

Alexey describes his emotions after helping Granny to place those winning bets:

I was a gambler myself, I felt that at the moment my arms and legs were trembling, there was a throbbing in my head.

Shortly after, he describes Granny before she makes two final bets on red for all her money:

She was, if one may so express it, quivering inwardly. She was entirely concentrated on something, absorbed in one aim.

Granny wins both times. They leave the casino.

Chapter 12.

After her large win, Granny decides to play roulette the next day.

Granny was in an impatient and irritable mood; it was evident that roulette had made a deep impression on her mind.

She bets on zero again, but continues to lose. After multiple failed attempts she switches to betting on red, and this time zero turns up. In her rage she increases her stake, and eventually loses all the money she had won the day before.

Granny makes Alexey help her to exchange more of her money so she can gamble with it, and in her desperation accepts a bad exchange rate. They return to the casino, and Granny loses much of it. They both leave, and Granny vows to return to Moscow.

However, shortly after, Granny returns to the casino alone with the remaining money.

As sure as I'm alive, I'll win it back.

She loses again.

Chapter 13.

Alexey describes how Granny returned to the casino once more in his absence, but this time with all the money she had taken with her on her trip:

The following day she lost everything. It was bound to happen. When once anyone is started upon that road, it is like a man in a sledge flying down a snow mountain more and more swiftly.

He describes her play:

I marvelled how she could have stood those seven or eight hours sitting there in her chair and scarcely leaving the table, but Potapich told me that three or four times she had begun winning considerably; and, carried on by fresh hope, she could not tear herself away.

But gamblers know how a man can sit for almost twenty-four hours at cards, without looking to right or to left. Granny had played late in to the night, and in the process was taken advantage of by spectators around the table who attached themselves claiming to be of help.

The family’s financial future is ruined, and Granny returns to her estate in Moscow.

Chapter 14.

Polina and Alexey speak privately, and he begins to realize she may love him after all. But in his misguided elation, he chooses to return to the casino alone in an attempt to win money for her.

Sometimes the wildest idea, the most apparently impossible thought, takes possession of one's mind so strongly that one accepts it at last as something substantial.

He embarks upon an incredible winning streak, and becomes frenzied as he bets larger and larger amounts during his session:

I staked the last four thousand on "passe" [the numbers 19-36 in French Roulette] (but I scarcely felt anything as I did so; I simply waited in a mechanical, senseless way) — and again I won; then I won four times running.

I don't remember whether I once thought of Polina all this time.

He proceeds to break the bank on two roulette tables, before moving to a game called Trente en Quarante, and wins more again.

I was possessed by an intense craving for risk.

Perhaps passing through so many sensations my soul was not satisfied but only irritated by them and craved still more sensation — and stronger and stronger ones — till utterly exhausted.

Eventually he leaves and returns to Polina with his substantial winnings, who is sat at home in front of a candle with her arms crossed.

Chapter 17.

The story concludes a year and a half later. Alexey has lost Polina, and finds himself ruined by his addiction, having no other occupation other than gambling.

He confirms his addiction:

Even on my way to the gambling hall, as soon as I hear, two rooms away, the clink of the scattered money I almost go in to convulsions.

And his degenerated experience of winning large sums of money:

Yes, at moments like that one forgets all one's former failures! Why, I had gained this by risking more than life itself, I dared to risk it, and — there I was again, a man among men.

In the final pages, Alexey meets with an old friend, who confirms that Polina did indeed love him after all, but who was now mentally unwell. He talks in no uncertain terms about how Alexey has destroyed himself through his gambling addiction.

You have not only given up life, all your interests, private and public, the duties of a man and a citizen, your friends (and you really had friends) — you have not only given up your objects, such as they were, all but gambling — you have even given up your memories.

After parting with his friend, Alexey finishes by recalling a story of a recent experience at the roulette wheel… He was down to his last dollar, and decided to leave the casino to use it to buy food. However, before leaving, he returned to bet it on the wheel instead, and won.

He concludes:

What if I had not dared to risk it?

Review.

I assumed The Gambler was going to be a deep personal account of one man’s descent and fight against gambling addiction. But this is not the case. At the heart of the story is the family and the relationships they have with one another and in society, and the experiences at the roulette table are secondary.

The story itself isn’t as gripping as the likes of Crime and Punishment, and whilst the characters are unique and intriguing, they are not as memorable as ones from his other books. This is probably due to the fact that the book needed to be written within a month, so Dostoevsky didn't have the time to give it the same planning or depth as his other works.

Nonetheless, Dostoevsky’s analysis of gambling addiction in parts of the book are exemplary. He captures the atmosphere of the casino, and describes the behaviour of gamblers disturbingly well. His insights in to gambling addiction (he wrote the book in 1866) are as accurate today as anything that has been written since.

Even though the book isn’t my favorite, it’s a fascinating opportunity to read the thoughts of someone as masterful as Dostoevsky as they reveal their own addiction to gambling through the medium of fiction.

Conclusion.

Dostoevsky suffered from his addiction to gambling. During one of the most successful periods of his literary life he was reduced to writing letters to family and friends imploring them for money, and having to pawn his own possessions to survive. He also compelled people he loved to pawn their clothes and jewellery to support him too.

If nothing else, it’s a fascinating insight in to how gambling can take someone away from who they really are.

Dostoevsky’s addiction was driven by a desire for freedom. He wanted to free himself from his debts so badly that he was prepared to risk his own ruin in the process. All that stood between him and returning home to Russia was the roulette wheel, and he convinced himself that he could win if only he played well enough.

My one aim is to be free. I'd sacrifice anything for freedom.

And that’s the disturbing part; that a man of Dostoevsky’s genius could fool themselves in to believing they could beat the odds by their own force of will.

He was smart enough to know the odds were against him. He studied engineering when he was younger, so he would have been aware of the mathematics of the game (and the fact that the house had the edge). Still, his dreams of winning were so overpowering that he ignored logic and created a fantasy in his own mind where he could beat the game if only he could control his composure.

I really do know the secret — it is terribly silly and simple, merely a matter of keeping oneself under constant control and never getting excited, no matter how the game shifts.

But the mathematics beat him just like it beats everyone else.

Fortunately his addiction between 1863 and 1871 did not wipe out his ability to write. In fact, he wrote three of his greatest works during this time: Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), and Demons (1871). It’s possible that the crushing situation he found himself in drove him to write with more determination than ever before, and these books are the product of a man working for his own mental freedom.

Yet what’s equally as interesting as his addiction is his departure from it.

He manages to free himself after one particularly bad experience in 1871: a combination of a foreboding dream involving his deceased father, another devastating loss at the hands of the wheel, and almost visiting a Synagogue afterwards (he was not Jewish), seems to be enough to make a deep impression on him. Dostoevsky believed in omens, and this one was too dark to ignore.

His change of perspective was unusual and sudden, but it’s clear that at that moment, for whatever reason, he believed that his gambling addiction was about to lead him to lose more than money.

And for that reason he never gambled again.

Notes.

Currency exchange rates.

The following table gives a rough estimate of the exchange rate for the different currencies of the time in terms of their current value in USD (2020). I do not believe these values are exact, but I thought a rough estimate would be better than nothing.

• The original exchange rates are taken from the notes section of Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which gives the values in terms of USD at the time (I'm assuming for the year 1863). The values in their table are gathered from Herman Schmidt, Tate's Modern Cambist: A Manual of Foreign Exchanges and Bullion ... (London: Wilson).
• The inflation rate between 1863 and 2020 was 1,965.71% . (Source: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1863)
• The book does not contain the exchange rate for friedrich d'ors. However, in Dostoevsky's letter to Anna in 1867 he says that he won "thirty gold fredericks, i.e. 300 gulden", so I'm assuming that 1 friedrich d'or is worth 10 gulden.
• The book does not contain the exchange rate for "napoleons" either, but according to wikipedia a napoleon is commonly worth 20 francs, which would make it the same value as a louis d'or.

Sources.

• The excerpts of Dostoevsky's letters are from Selected Letters Of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Joseph Frank and David I. Goldstein, 1989) (ISBN-10: 0813511852, ISBN-13 : 978-0813511856).
• Quotes from The Gambler are taken from the translation by Constance Garnett. Newer translations provide a smoother and more modern read, but I like this particular translation for standalone quotes.
• My recommended translation of the book for reading is the one by Jane Kentish (ISBN-13: 978-0-19-953638-2). It also includes a discussion of Dostoevsky's gambling in the introduction by Malcolm Jones.