Winston Churchill’s love of gambling detailed in personal papers

Winston Churchill is well renowned for having enormous balls. (We speak figuratively, having never actually glimpsed Winnie in the buff.) He also knew how and when to bluff. From the fall of France in June 1940 until Russia’s entry into the war a year later, a very wobbly Britain stood absolutely alone in defiance of Hitler’s dreams of global conquest. Long fucking odds — but then again, Churchill liked to gamble.

In the 1920’s, largely as a result of Churchill’s backing, the UK parliament authorized the creation of a parimutuel horse betting system. That’s public knowledge – but we’re about to learn a lot more about the man’s private gambling habits, now that the Churchill Archive Trust is set to digitize and publish online some one million items of Churchill-related letters, telegrams, photographs, etc., beginning in 2012. Here’s hoping there’s a draft of a speech in which he declares a particularly good night at the poker table to be his very own ‘finest hour’. Read more.

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