Editing Chico Marx (section)

==Gambling==
<!--[[File:Marx Brothers 1948.jpg|right|thumb|[[Marx Brothers|The Marx Brothers]] (clockwise from bottom: Groucho, Chico, and Harpo) by [[Yusuf Karsh]] in 1948]]-->
[[File:Harpo and Chico Marx General Electric Theater 1959.JPG|thumb|right|Harpo and Chico in "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery", a 1959 episode of ''[[General Electric Theater]]''.]]
As well as being a compulsive womanizer, Chico had a lifelong [[Problem gambling|addiction to gambling]]. His favorite gambling pursuits were card games, horse racing, dog racing, and various sports betting. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account. When an interviewer in the late 1930s asked him how much money he had lost from gambling, he answered, "Find out how much money Harpo's got. That's how much I've lost." Chico always bet on longshots and quickly developed a reputation for being a sucker. When out of games, horses and tips, Chico would make bets with strangers on the street whether the number of the next passing car license plate would be odd or even.<ref>{{cite book|last=Adamson|first=Joe|title=Groucho, Harpo, Chico and sometimes Zeppo|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1973|page=20|isbn=0-671-47072-8}}</ref> Gummo Marx, in an interview years after Chico's death, said: "Chico's favorite people were actors who gambled, producers who gambled, and women who screwed." In reference to Chico's well-known promiscuity, [[George Jessel (actor)|George Jessel]] quipped, "Chico didn't button his fly until he was seventy."<ref>{{cite book| last=Bader| first=Robert S.| title=Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers On Stage| publisher=Northwestern University Press| year=2016| page=132| isbn=978-0-8101-3416-4}}</ref>

Chico's chronic gambling addiction compelled him to continue working in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income, and in the early 1940s, he found himself playing in the same small, cheap theater halls in which he had begun his career 30 years earlier.  The Marx Brothers' penultimate film, ''[[A Night in Casablanca]]'' (1946), was made largely for Chico's financial benefit since he had filed for bankruptcy a few years prior. At around this time, the rest of the Marx brothers, finally aware of Chico's out-of-control gambling, took full control over his finances; they took all money away from Chico as he earned it and put him on an allowance to curb his constant betting and gambling. Chico stayed on the allowance until his death.{{Citation needed|reason=Some sources say the brothers tried to control his spending but he always successfully resisted them|date=March 2023}}

Chico had a reputation as a world-class [[pinochle]] player, a game he and Harpo learned from their father. Groucho said Chico would throw away good cards (with the knowledge of spectators) to make the play "more interesting".{{citation needed|date=March 2023}} Chico's last public appearance was in 1960, playing cards on the television show ''Championship Bridge''. He and his partner lost the game.