Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1700-1800
Origin: game

gamble

1 verb
     
Related topics: Gambling
gam‧ble1 [intransitive and transitive]
1DGG to risk money or possessions on the result of something such as a card game or a race, when you do not know for certain what the result will be [↪ bet]:
Their religion forbids them to drink or gamble.
gamble on
Jack loves gambling on the horses.
2 to do something that involves a lot of risk, and that will not succeed unless things happen the way you would like them to
gamble on
They're gambling on Johnson being fit for Saturday's game.
gamble something on something
Potter gambled everything on his new play being a hit.
gamble that
She was gambling that he wouldn't read it too carefully.
gamble with
We can't relax our safety standards - we'd be gambling with people's lives.
—gambler noun [countable]
Stevens was a compulsive gambler.

gamble something ↔ away

phrasal verb
DGG to lose the whole of an amount of money by gambling:
Nielsen gambled his inheritance away.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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