A bloke who won big after he bet his life savings on a single spin of the roulette wheel had another incredible stroke of luck a few years later.
Londoner Ashley Revell hit headlines back in 2004 after the then-32-year-old decided to sell everything he had - including his home and his clothes - to gamble £76,840 ($135,300) all on red at the Plaza Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas.
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The whole thing played on a Sky One reality show called Double or Nothing, where viewers could help Revell decide whether he was going to put it all or red or black.
Speaking to CNN about what was going through his head when it happened, he 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.
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“So suddenly I just put it all on red.”
And the gamble paid off for Revell who ended up doubling his money and winning £153,680 ($270,600).
In a sweet twist of fate, Revell used some of his winnings to go on the ‘trip of a lifetime’ travelling across Europe on a motorbike, while there he ended up meeting the woman he would later marry.
And, somewhat incredibly, Revell’s good luck didn’t end there, in 2018 he managed to uncover a Bronze Age hoard while he was out with his metal detector near his home in Elham, Kent, with members of the Medway History Finders metal detecting group.
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Speaking to Kent Online at the time, he said: “I hadn't found much all day, just the usual shotgun cartridges and bits of foil, then I had an interesting signal and dug up a piece of green metal.
“I got fed-up with digging up this 'scrap' and started to walk back to a tent that had been set up where members were sitting around the table taking a break.
"I got back to the tent and emptied my pockets into the 'scrap' bin, sat down and had a cup of tea.
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"Then the club chairman went to empty his pockets into the bin and suddenly reached in and held up a piece of the 'scrap' I had put in there and said 'who put this in here?'"
Revell led the group back to where he found the ‘scrap’ only for them to discover rare items dating back to 900 and 800 BC.
In total, they found 23 ingot fragments, two kilo complete 'bun' ingot and a selection of axes.
Claire Reid