title: "HIT ME": The True Story of 60 Years in the Life of a Compulsive Gambler
author: E. L. Seidner
description: Ed Seidner was born February 26, 1930 in Newark, New Jersey. His father, William was a carpenter and his mother, Stella a homemaker. There was one sibling, an older sister named Rosalind. At the age of sixteen, Ed falsified his birth certificate and joined the Marine Corps where he served three years, receiving an honorable discharge at age nineteen. Under the G.I. Bill, Ed attended Rutgers University where he majored in finance and marketing. At the age of twenty-four, Ed entered the insurance business with Prudential where he won numerous awards culminating in his Chartered Life Underwriter degree from Wharton University in 1961.In 1962 Ed became a General Agent for Guardian Life in Chicago, Illinois. During his years at Guardian, his agency won countless awards including the President Cup in 1965. Ed served on Guardian's Field Advisor Board as well as President of Chicago's General Agents Management Association and in l974 was listed in the "Who's Who" in Finance and Industry.Ed's gambling activities, which began as a teenager and continued throughout his life are chronicled in his book "Hit Me". Gambling took Ed to scores of casinos in twenty countries where he amassed millions of dollars in losses and ultimately in the loss of a brilliant career and the failure of nine marriages.
zlib_text: DRAGON’S CURVY GAMBLER
  by
  ANNABELLE WINTERS
  
  1
  GABBIE
  I’d noticed him from across the casino. Tall like a tree and just as thick. Chest like a barrel, fists
  like hammerheads, deep green eyes on a ruggedly handsome face marked with lines that made me
  wonder how old he was. He looked ageless, in a way—like he coulda said he was thirty or three
  hundred and both would feel right.
  “My lucky day,” he’d said when he came up to me by the craps table. My heart almost stopped
  when I heard his deep, rumbling voice, and it was all I could do to stay cool and collected.
  “Sure doesn’t look like you’re having much luck,” I’d said, glancing down at the remaining chips in
  his big hand and then up into his green eyes. I’d lost myself in those eyes—and not just because of the
  animal-like attraction this man aroused in me just from his imposing physical presence, the way he
  talked, the way he carried himself, even the smoky natural scent that flavored the atmosphere around
  him.
  No, I’d lost myself in his 