"Once she was someone's wife... now she's just someone's luck!" First seen getting roughed up in an alley for gambling with loaded dice, Barbara Stanwyck (DOUBLE INDEMNITY) is Joan Booth, newly wed and on her honeymoon in Las Vegas while her husband David (Robert Preston, THIS GUN FOR HIRE) works on a story about the new dam. A former writer hoping to pitch a story about gambling to a magazine back in Chicago, Joan is caught taking candid photographs with a concealed camera. Surprisingly, casino owner Corrigan (NO WAY OUT's Stephen McNally, whose real given name is Horace as his character in the film is embarrassed to admit) - agrees to let her take photographs and gives her some of the house chips to take a spin at the wheel. With her husband retiring early each night for work in the morning, Joan spends more and more time on the casino floor, briefly enjoying her reputation with other regulars as a lady luck. When Joan's luck turns and a spurned Corrigan no longer allows her to play with the house money, she dips into the money Paul has left in the hotel safe. Pawning her camera, Joan is able to win the money back and get it out of her system; but the sudden arrival of her possessive older sister Ruth (Edith Barrett, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE) requires her to stay on in Vegas as her husband starts his drive back cross country. When Paul discovers a broke and depressed Joan, he hands in his story, resigns, and whisks her off to Mexico and a secluded house on the beach with the goal of writing a book; but their happiness is short-lived when Joan runs into a couple (THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER's Don Beddoe and HANGMEN ALSO DIE's Nana Bryant) from Vegas who point her towards an illegal operation behind the local hotel. Upon discovering that Joan has lost all of their savings, he splits his remaining cash between them and heads back to Chicago in search of a job hoping that she will follow him. Of course, Joan has to pass through Vegas on the bus to Chicago and ends up approaching Corrigan about a job to make back David's money. Corrigan, however, is pulling out of Vegas and instead offers to make Joan the front for a horse racing operation. With a weekly allowance of money to play with as the owner of a stable, Joan slips back into her old ways and is regarded by Corrigan's cohorts as "worse than a lush" whose compulsive behavior could prove deadly if she cannot keep herself away from the track during a fateful race. The story is told in flashback by David to Joan's doctor (John Hoyt, BLACKBOARD JUNGLE) with more anguish to come in the climax as they try to get at the root of Joan's addiction. A young Tony Curtis (THE BOSTON STRANGLER) has a single scene as a bell boy. Photographed by Russell Metty (TOUCH OF EVIL) and scored by Frank Skinner (THE DARK MIRROR).