Bonita Friml, Bette Midler, is a Las Vegas lounge singer whose husband Harold Benson, Rip Torn, is a cigar-smoking recreational gambler with a long winning streak. It seems that he cannot lose to one blackjack dealer in particular, a man named Willie Brodax, Ken Wahl. When the casino notices Willie’s losing streak, they fire him, figuring that he must be jinxed. Willie then lands another blackjack-dealing job in Reno, Nevada, and Harold follows him there, forcing Bonita to abandon her lucrative singing gig to accompany him.
When Willie sees that Harold is now in Reno, Willie reports Harold to security, but they find no evidence of cheating. Milt Hawkins, Val Avery, who works with Willie at the casino, suggests that Willie “get a piece of” Harold the way that Harold “got a piece of” him. Willie follows Harold and eventually finds Harold’s mobile home. Willie then encounters Bonita, and the two fall in love. She tells Willie that she is tired of living with her domineering husband and wants to have Harold murdered. She tries to convince Willie to help with the murder plot, but he is hesitant. When she insists, he agrees to help her, but on one condition: if he can break the jinx, the murder plans will be canceled.
When the fateful day arrives, Harold shows up to play blackjack against Willie as usual. Harold’s winning streak continues, but just when he has wagered all of his money on one final hand, a woman sitting next to him becomes annoyed by the cigar that he has been smoking for good luck. She yanks the cigar away from him and extinguishes it. When he hits on his blackjack hand, he makes 20, but a surprisingly calm Willie manages to get 21, thus finally beating Harold. Willie has broken the jinx, and Harold is now flat broke. But when Willie phones Bonita to call off the murder plot, she doesn’t answer the phone.
When Harold arrives home, he pretends that he had won big so that Bonita will not know that they are broke. When Harold is in the shower, he is so distraught that he commits suicide by sticking his finger in an open light-bulb socket. Willie arrives, sees Bonita hovering over the dead body, and assumes that she had killed her husband. She assures Willie that it was a suicide, which makes him regret having beaten Harold. When Bonita hears this and learns that Harold had lost everything, she begins to panic. Willie reminds her of the life insurance money that she is sure to receive, but she points out that the insurance policy had a suicide clause that prevents her from collecting. She and Willie decide to make Harold’s death look like an accident.
Willie drives off towing Bonita’s trailer behind him and, while stopped in a remote location, places Harold’s corpse behind the wheel of the truck. Willie rolls the truck and trailer into a ravine, then heads back into town. When police discover the crashed vehicle, they conclude that Harold must have died in an accident, meaning that Bonita can now receive the insurance money. But when she goes to file the claim, she learns that Harold had allowed the policy to lapse, thus dashing any hope that she may receive benefits. However, Harold did leave her a letter that sends her on a scavenger hunt for clues that will instruct her how to get the money that she will need. The clues spell “J-O-N-A-H,” as in Jonah, the Biblical prophet who was infamously jinxed in the Old Testament.
Knowing what this means, Bonita heads to the casino, sits down at Willie’s table, and begins to play blackjack. During her gameplay, she smokes the same kind of cigar that Harold always smoked for good luck. She embarks on a winning streak of her own, upsetting Willie and his supervisors, who fear that his jinx has returned. After he is fired from this job, he drives away in his car, only to find Bonita hiding in the back seat waiting for him. She wants him to join her in a new scheme in which he will go from casino to casino working as a dealer, and they will split the money that they will make when she wins the casinos’ money by playing against him.
