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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#180: A Roll of the Dice

Despite all our skill and effort, sometimes life simply comes down to luck. Whether you’re trying to win a game, land a job, or find a significant other, there’s no sure way to know how it’ll work out — or how good your luck will be. A twist of fate could send you catapulting into happiness, or your luck could sour in the blink of an eye. But if you can push through bad luck, you might just find you can change it.

So this week, you’ll want to get your rabbits’ feet and four leaf clovers ready. Are you feeling lucky?

This week's prompts

Write a story that hinges on the outcome of a coin flip.

Adventure – 68 stories

Start your story with someone having a run of bad luck.

Angst – 42 stories

Write about someone losing their lucky charm.

Mystery – 26 stories

Set your story in a casino.

Adults – 34 stories

Write about someone whose luck is running out.

Character – 44 stories

Stories

“Play the Card as She Lies” by Dan Coglianese

Submitted to Contest #180

You never hit on seventeen. Everybody knows that. Unless you’re me. For most people, the fun is in guessing right and beating the dealer. I know every card in the deck before she’s shown. I call the cards “she” because I can read them before they fall, and they never lie. I discovered my unusual talent at age 5. My 1st grade teacher held up flash cards with pictures of animals. I named the animal before she tu...

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“It's a Toss Up” by Mary Hill

Submitted to Contest #180

I stood in front of the class and recited "two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, long I wondered, long I stood..." I thought it was funny because the day before I was asked to make a big decision that would affect the rest of my life, although I was just 12 years old. You see, my mother and father were splitting up. They both wanted me to live with them. They told me that the decision was up to me where I would land. I wanted to scream at them, "You can't leave this kind of thing up to a kid!" But I di...

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“Grandmother's Amulet” by Cajek Veilwinter

Submitted to Contest #180

Rufus sat at the long table - already decorated for the holy day with dim candles and a few pewter statues of possums laboring - and stared down at his plate of roast vegetables and nuts. He knew that this was the moment he had been waiting for: the moment he could finally share his dream with his family. He took in a breath and tapped his glass goblet. "I know you all think I'm crazy," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "But I want to be an adventurer.” There were murmurs and sighs, but Rufus continued. “I want to see the world and ...

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“The Sun Grew Hotter” by Miles Bergquist

Submitted to Contest #180

The man, who had given himself the name of John, awoke under his tarp. It snapped in the wind. Tent poles held it up over him. He had dreamt of horses on a charred farmland, galloping together, frantic, ash raising from their pounding hooves. They ran from something that John could not see. They screamed in black panic with their lips folded, exposing pink gums and large, flat teeth. Everything he owned sat in a child’s backpack next to him. A coat of grime clung to its graphic of dolphins breaching. He wore a patched jacket, jeans th...

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“Janus” by Luke Melvin

Submitted to Contest #180

The door slid shut behind me with a smooth hum. The captain’s office was spartan compared to the rest of the ship: a desk lit by a dim light overhead, a chair, cabinets containing all manner of filing standing against the left wall. Opposite this was not a wall but a great window, with all of space piled against it, the speckled black doing its utmost to reduce the room even further, just one more insignificance in the scheme. Captain Wesley Blum strode easily to the other side of the desk, fingers brushing the desktop as he went. “Take a ...

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“My luck—it's running out!” by Kenz Ross

Submitted to Contest #180

I lost my lucky charm last night. Well, technically, I didn’t lose it… it was taken from me. But I’m a man who believes in accountability, and if I allowed someone to take my lucky charm, then I really actually lost it, didn't I? It makes me cringe just thinking about it. Things were going so well! I’d been standing, far more relaxed than those around me, beside the roulette table. I mean, what better way to test your luck than on one of the most luck-based activities around, right?...

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“Luck or Lore?” by Patricia Merewether

Submitted to Contest #180

I sat teetering on a thick phone book, the booster chairs of the fifties at my Grandma's kitchen table while Mom and Grandma sorted through a dusty old hat box. As I drank milk and ate a cookie, Grandma pulled something from the box and placed it in front of me. I was so horrified that I jumped and ended up shooting milk from my nose and spilling the rest up the sleeve of my dress and onto the table. Mom sprang up and saved me from sliding off the phone book. My cookie fell, and Spam, Grandma's dog of many colors, caught it. "What w...

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“What Happens in Vegas” by Jeannette Miller

Submitted to Contest #180

Dana could feel the morning light shining through her closed eyelids and it made her eyes ache. What a night. She must have left the blackout curtains opened before going to bed. Her head felt heavy and fuzzy from the night before. She laid there trying to decide whether to get up and close the curtains to get a few more hours of sleep or just pull the blankets over her head and call it good. As she scootched her body further down under the covers, flashes of the last couple of days ran through her mind. It was only a few days ago when Dana’...

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“Circling the Drain” by Scott Muska

Submitted to Contest #180

My normal morning shower took on an unordinary significance with a quickness when the typewriter charm on my necklace fell off the chain, circled the drain and then went down it before I could do so much as a thing. I heard a subtle but simultaneously deafening ping as it landed on the glazed porcelain tiles, looked down in just enough time to see it disappear. “Well, I really hope that’s not going to be a sign for something,” I thought, knowing there was no way I was going to get it back, even though I did squat down, nude, in a basebal...

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“Dr. Feelgood” by Douglas W. Carr

Submitted to Contest #180

“Bad luck? There’s no such thing as bad luck,” Penny’s father blurted out. “You make your own luck. You remember that.” Those words haunted Penny as she headed off to college. She had a difficult time with the idea of bad and good luck. She always felt she had bad luck and others had good luck, no matter the amount of work she invested.She drove herself crazy with the whole idea. She’d even convinced herself that, given her amount of bad luck, she must have lived a previous life having nothing but good luck. It had to have been karma.Fo...

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“The path we choose.” by Jane Summers

Submitted to Contest #180

I suppose it could be worse, he told himself, I might have ended up on the side with the bear. Max scrabbled his feet against the earth, struggling to find a foothold before his weight pulled him down. Desperate, he dug his fingernails into the dirt trying to gain purchase on something that wasn’t there. He looked ahead into the forest, his chin at ground level, focusing on the moss-covered tree trunk lying a mere three feet away. The edges of the trunk were crumbling away, softened by the natural dampness of the forest. Sun-dappled leaves...

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“Sex on the Beach” by Sara Wong

Submitted to Contest #180

Everyone knows the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway is only good for one thing—regret. It boasts a whopping three-point-nine stars to its Google reputation, but Stacy argues about three-point-seven of those stars can be attributed to inebriation and cognitive dissonance of the highest degree. Nevertheless, the top review never fails to make her laugh. “4/5. Fun place, but the bartenders are a hit or miss.” Stacy, bottle-blonde, tip-finessing prodigy, is the hit. For one more night. Wren, the sad excuse of a bartender they’ll be l...

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“Inferno Luck” by J K

Submitted to Contest #180

I’m on the road, finally, and far enough away that I should be able to relax. Still, it’s hours until I get back home, and I’m just hoping the Taurus doesn’t let me down. That burning smell is back, so it needs oil already, but I am shaking too hard right now. I go ahead and pull over into a rest area. At least I’m not tired, but my stomach feels sick with adrenaline.The sun was not yet up to flush away the darkness when I left the motel this morning. I made excuses to Charlie that I needed to get back home to watch my roommate’s pets while ...

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“The richest thing on earth!” by L J

Submitted to Contest #180

He was tired of cleaning up after people. His job sickened him more every day. Casino housekeeper..blah..He cleaned up champagne smelling vomit, cocaine sprinkled blood, even a diamond -encrusted stiletto heel from ...one of those. Women...He'd wanted to be a blackjack dealer; he practiced every day. He said hi to the casino bosses, he even wore a bow tie with his housekeeping coveralls. He'd come to Las Vegas with stars in his eyes.". I am gonnna be rich, someday. I can feel it!". He had his good luck charm, a new poker chip that he found o...

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“The Gambler” by Sarah Goodner

Submitted to Contest #180

The Gambler Kage Griffin sat down at the blackjack table with $10,000 worth of chips he’d just won from craps. Tonight was his night. He was going to start earning back all the money he’d drained from his children’s college funds. He motioned to the waitress who was wearing a tiny French maid costume, “Double scotch on the rocks, honey.” “Sure thing,” she smiled. It was a challenge to file a sexual harassment complaint when she was showing half her boobs, she reminded herself. Plus, this was a customer who obviously had a lot of money t...

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$250

Prize money

214

Contest entries

100

Stories

Ended on 22:59 - Jan 13, 2023 EST

Won by Marilyn Filewood 🏆

Title: Come In Spinner

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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