A gambler from London flogged all of his possessions and bet his life savings on one single roulette spin in Vegas.
Ashley Revell, who was 32 at the time, decided to sell everything he had – including his home and his clothes – to gamble £76,840 (US$135,300) all on red at the Plaza Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas.
Red would double his £76,840 stake to more than £150,000, but if the roulette came up black it would leave him bankrupt.
Recalling the nail-biting moment for CNN, Revell said: "It was just… pleading that I'd pick[ed] it and that it would come in red.
“Before I actually walked up to the wheel, I was thinking about putting it on black, and then suddenly the guy was spinning the ball around and all the Sky viewers said… they [had] voted that I should put it on red.
“So suddenly I just put it all on red. I was just pleading that it would come in and I'd get lucky this time.
“What I was really worried about was that I'd lose and my parents would be upset and my family would, you know, all my friends would be upset."
Then once the wheel began to spin, the realisation really began to set in.
He said in 2011: "All I could see was the wheel. It was like nothing else mattered as the ball jumped from one colour to the next.
“I was seconds away from losing all I had. I sold everything of value that I owned to fund this crazy bet – and could have left Las Vegas with nothing more than the hired tuxedo I was wearing.”
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The winnings were life-changing as Revell wisely walked away with the prize money and used it on an online poker company called Poker UTD.
While that didn't work out, he did spend some of the cash on a cross-Europe motorbike road trip where he ended up meeting his future wife.
But his ecstatic moment didn't just change his life, it also inspired Simon Cowell to create his £15million game show Red or Black.
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Music mogul Cowell was one of the millions of viewers watching the nerve-racking events unfold live on Sky One – and was so gripped he decided to recreate the concept in 2011.
On Red or Black?, presented by Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, 1,000 hopefuls will be whittled down through a series of 50/50 games.
The last man or woman standing has to pick red or black for the chance to win £1m.
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