Gamblers Jim Turner and Valarie part company in Chicago and agree to meet at Saratoga with Jim stopping off at Barrowville en route. There, Jim meets George Mayhew and Eight Ball, a barbershop bootblack, and replenishes his bankroll gambling on pitching horseshoes. George's mother and his sister Marjorie run a boarding house and Jim goes there to live. George and Jim go to Bellport Park and meet "Broadway", owner of "Lady Luck", a thoroughbred race horse. Jim bets on the horse and wins heavily. He falls in love with Marjorie and wins her away from Preston Barrow when he forswears gambling and promises to get a $20-per-week job which represents Peggy's idea of respectability. Christmas Eve, 1934, finds Jim a night clerk in a small Chicago hotel, playing the horses only on paper for his amusement. Jim is given some money by Joe, a pal of gambler/race horse owner Jed Bright, in appreciation for a racing tip he had given. Jim had planned on sending the money to Marjorie's needy mother but...