Gamble
| Gamble | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type | Event |
| Set |
Menagerie |
| Illustrator(s) | Martin Hoffmann |
| Event text | |
|
+1 Buy Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure or Action, you may play it. Otherwise, discard it. | |
Gamble is an Event from Menagerie. It may play the top card of your deck if it's a Treasure or an Action. You are gambling for the possibility of playing a more valuable card. Alternatively, you may already know what card is on top of your deck, making this a sure bet.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- Playing the card is optional and does not use up an Action.
- If you do not play the card - whether or not it is an Action or Treasure - discard it.
Other rules clarifications
- If Gamble plays a card for you that draws additional Action or Treasure cards into your hand, you can't play the cards it draws.
Strategy
Gamble is a seemingly straightforward Event with many uses. It can have a high impact in allowing you to play cards during your Buy phase, sees frequent if slightly weak use as a sifter, and occasionally has other functions. However, it can also be a waste of money if you flip a card that draws cards immediately, as you typically cannot play the ones you draw. Deciding when to Gamble is therefore a difficult question that involves weighing various possible benefits and risks.
The most obvious use case of Gamble is to convert 
into the ability to play cards you weren’t able to draw this turn but would ideally be playing every turn. Cards that you want to play often and early in the game make good targets for this. Travellers such as Page, junking attacks such as Witch, and trashers such as Amulet are some examples. Tactician is also a strong synergy, as you avoid the downside of having to discard your Treasures and can maintain consistency by Gambling to ensure that you play one every turn.
Gamble is a mediocre sifter. You can use it to trigger favorable shuffles, or to cycle past Coppers and Estates in your deck at the net cost of 
per Copper or per Estate. This is more expensive than other sifting Events such as Scouting Party. Furthermore, unless you know the order of your deck’s contents, you don’t know how much the Gamble will cost you.
Gain-and-play is probably Gamble’s strongest use case. If you draw your deck, you can buy cards and then Gamble to play them immediately. This is useful with duration draw, which will improve your next turn, and with payload cards, especially gainers. If the card generates or more, you can play it without losing money, or even make money. Haggler and Kiln are good examples of such. Usually, the effect of this is just to make payload cards cheaper: You buy a Livery and Gamble it, paying $7 but making $3 back, so your Livery effectively ends up costing you 
instead of 
. With cost reduction or payload cards in Exile, this tactic can actually generate more money than the card cost. For this reason, Gamble has a particularly strong synergy with Stockpile. You can Gamble Stockpiles, buy another Stockpile to discard the Exiled ones, and then Gamble the discarded Stockpiles. This allows you to play the same Stockpile multiple times in a turn. With an empty discard pile and deck, 2 Buys, and 
to start, you can empty the Stockpile pile and generate a lot of and Buys.
Rarely, a Kingdom can be suited to a “Gamble engine.” This occurs when the Kingdom has both very strong trashing and very strong terminal payload, but severely limited draw and villages. The goal is to play all the cards in your deck by Gambling them rather than drawing the majority of them. For example, if you create a deck where no card generates less than , you can repeatedly Gamble through your deck, playing a large number of Collections. This is something you have to plan your whole deck around: For example, you should try not to have any cantrips, because these (and other cards that draw at least one card) will effectively draw cards dead, since you will be unable to Gamble them if they end up in your hand during your Buy phase. Victory and Night cards should also be avoided, as Gamble cannot put them into play.
Playing a card with Gamble is optional. Examples of situations where it may be best to not play a Gambled card include drawing cards dead (e.g. Smithy) or wasting a one-shot card (e.g. Horse).
Notable synergies
- Tactician
- Stockpile
- Bank
- Tunnel
- Duration draw
- Stackable Attacks
- Cost reduction
Notable anti-synergies
- Night cards
External strategy articles
Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 |
+1 Buy Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure or Action, you may play it. Otherwise, discard it. |
Menagerie | March 2020 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dutch | Gokken | +1 Aanschaf Toon de bovenste kaart van je trekstapel. Is het een geld- of actiekaart, dan mag je deze spelen. Leg de kaart anders af. |
(2020) | ||
| German | Wagnis |  |
 |
+1 Kauf Decke die oberste Karte deines Nachziehstapels auf. Ist es eine Geld- oder Aktionskarte, darfst du sie spielen. Wenn du sie nicht gespielt hast, lege sie ab. |
|
| Japanese | 博打 (pron. bakuchi) |
Trivia
Preview
Secret History
Wording
In response to comments that it is unclear whether "otherwise" in the card text means 'if you don't play the card' or 'if it's not an Action or Treasure', Donald X. Vaccarino remarked:
When the card is reprinted, I can try to improve the wording, but I will avoid any real change to functionality, because it's much much better to not change the functionality. I reserve that for situations where the functionality is utterly messed up, e.g. Inheritance (not the case here), or situations where it's a significant edge case to get the difference to appear. Yes okay I also allow "keep you honest" fixes, which are not utterly messed up and do come up, but are extremely minor. Anyway there is not sufficient impetus for changing Gamble's functionality, so its functionality will not be changing. The wording could be improved though.
And, if it needed the small font, it could get it; now that the card exists, it's stuck getting the best wording it can despite what font size that entails.
