Wanna Bet? A Degenerate Gambler’s Guide to Living on the Edge
(St. Martin’s Press), 2018
Selected Reviews
“By his own admission, Lange is a self-destructive overachiever, two qualities that wouldn’t seem to go together but for him are flip sides of the same coin.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“While his constant need for “action” can become repetitive, the heart of the book is how stand-up comedy, for him, is “the ultimate risk” (he rails against “spineless” younger comics who “work out a safe set of material that does not offend”). Lange’s entertaining book makes it clear that, no matter how wild and risky his lifestyle may be, he takes comedy more seriously than anything else.”
– Publishers Weekly
“In his new book, “Wanna Bet,” the former Howard Stern sidekick details his experiences with compulsive gambling and how the habit led to several others, including his attempts to get audiences to leave during his stand-up shows (often by using homophobic and racial slurs), but none more than his cocaine and heroin addictions…Lange speaks about his demons with a candor that would take many by surprise, yet honesty remains his trademark.”
– The New York Post
“An avid sports better and frequent card player, Lange believes that the true gambler gets high not from winning, but from the chaotic unknown of betting itself. He recounts some of his favorite moments, many of which haven’t involved money at all. … The book is a tour of a subculture where bookies and mobsters, athletes and celebrities ride the gambling roller coaster for the love of the rush. “
– NJ Arts
A Word from Anthony
Toward the very end of writing Crash and Burn, after he had finally gotten clean and had his demons momentarily in control, Artie said something to me in passing that stuck with me. He’d realized, in therapy, that gambling was his first vice and the one he couldn’t lick. Winning a bet with a bookie at thirteen gave him his first rush, long before cigarettes, alcohol and hard drugs did. That admission stuck with me, and it became the inspiration for this book.
Artie has gambled extensively in the traditional sense, and we intended this book to be a straight forward, humorous guide to betting on sports and playing cards. But it became so much more. Gambling beyond his means, not just monetarily, is Artie’s life philosophy. He’s won big, he’s lost even bigger, but hasn’t yet been able to alter his behavior. This is as honest a window into the mind of a self-destructive risk-addict as you’ll ever get.
