The Gambler song and Kenny Rogers as the Gambler.

What is the relationship between the song "The Gambler" sung by Kenny Rogers and the TV movie Kenny Rogers as the Gambler?

The song "The Gambler" was written by Don Schlitz in 1976, and first recorded by various singers, including Kenny Rogers, in 1978. The TV movie Kenny Rogers as the Gambler was first broadcast on 08 April 1980, clearly inspired by the song.

But what is the relationship between the fictional worlds of the song and the television movie? Do they happen in the same fictional universe, or in alternate universes where different events happen, or in two totally separate fictional universes with no connection?

It is desirable to know the relationship between the song "The Gambler" and Kenny Rogers as the Gambler in order to know the relationship between the song's "Gambler" and "the Gambler" in Kenny Rogers as the Gambler.

The title of Kenny Rogers as the Gambler says that Kenny Rogers portrays the character known as "the Gambler" in that TV movie. Since Kenny Rogers portrays Brady Hawkes in Kenny Rogers as the Gambler, Brady Hawkes is the character known as "the Gambler" in Kenny Rogers as the Gambler.

But what, if any, relationship exists between the song's "Gambler" and the TV movie's "Gambler"?

In the song two down on their luck characters meet on a train, and "the Gambler" gives words of advice and wisdom to "the Narrator". In Kenny Rogers as the Gambler Brady Hawkes and Billy Montana meet on a train and Brady Hawkes does give Billy Montana some advice and words of wisdom. Thus it would be simple to assume that the TV movie's "Gambler" Brady Hawkes is the song's "Gambler" and that Billy Montana is the song's "Narrator".

Brady Hawkes and Billy Montana appear together again in the sequels, Kenny Rogers as the Gambler: The Adventure Continues (1983), and The Gambler Part III: The Legend Continues (1987), where part of the plot is preventing events which happened in 1890 in real history, and Brady Hawkes appears without Billy Montana in The Gambler returns: The luck of the draw (1991) set in 1906, and Gambler V: Playing for Keeps (1994).

Brady Hawkes's son Jeremiah Hawkes appears in Kenny Rogers as the Gambler, Kenny Rogers as the Gambler: The Adventure Continues, and Gambler V: Playing for Keeps, and it seems very probable that the first, second, third, and fifth TV movies happen in the same fictional order, though the chronological placement of the fourth, The Gambler returns: The luck of the draw (1991), set in 1906, is a little less obvious.

but the song's relationship between "the Gambler" and "the Narrator" is a lot less lasting than the TV movie series's relationship between Brady Hawkes and Billy Montana. The song gives no indication that "the Gambler" ever said anything else to "the Narrator" after finishing his part of the song.

In fact when I first read the complete lyrics to the song, the lines:

Crushed out his cigarette
And faded off to sleep
And somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even

and:

But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep

seemed like a direct statement that "the Gambler" died in his sleep that night and never spoke another word to anyone, dying in poverty after a misspent life of failure.

And when Kenny Rogers appeared on The Muppett Show on 13 October 1979, the performance of "The Gambler" showed "the Gambler" dying and his spirit rising from his body.

https://www.overthinkingit.com/2012/10/01/the-musical-talmud-the-gambler-kenny-rogers/

So fans of the TV movies definitely won't want to think that Brady Hawkes became the song's "Gambler" sometime after the last TV movie, because they don't want a character they like to end up like that.

Billy Montana wasn't seen after the third TV movie, and might have become the song's "Gambler" and died on a train about 30 years later about 1920. Probably most fans of the TV movies wouldn't like to think of him ending up like that either.

But Brady Hawkes might be the song's "Narrator" getting advice and wisdom from some older gambler on a train sometime before Hawkes got the nickname of "the Gambler", before the vague date of the first TV movie. And of course there is no way to be certain who that older and more experienced gambler was.

In The Gambler returns: The luck of the draw (1991) set in 1906, there are a lot of cameo appearances by TV western characters and actors from the 1950s and 1960s, including Jack Kelly as a happy and well Bart Maverick, about 30 years after the Maverick episodes. But what about brother Bret, cousin Beau, brother Brent, "Pappy", or Uncle Bentley? Could one of them have ended up as the title "Gambler" of the song?

Did Don Schlitz think that one of the Mavericks would be likely to end up like the song's "Gambler"? I hope not!