Card sharp Jerry “Babe” Stewart, [Clark Gable], and his cronies Kay Everly, [Dorothy Mackaill], Charlie Vane, [Grant Mitchell], and Vargas, [Paul Ellis], cheat an unsuspecting Mr Morton, [Walter Walker], at poker. Afterward, when Babe breaks up with his girlfriend Kay Everly, she threatens to turn him in to the police, but he is not worried. Police officer “Dickie” Collins, [J. Farrell MacDonald], who has been following Babe, then drops in to inform him that he has told Morton the truth. Worried, Babe decides to leave New York City for a while. He chooses the small town of Glendale, purely by chance.
There he meets librarian Connie Randall, [Carole Lombard], who is bored to death of Glendale, and tries to get better acquainted with her. She plays hard to get, figuring it is the best way to interest someone as experienced as Babe, but finds it difficult to hide her attraction to him. When he is ready to return to New York, she appeals to the gambler in him, getting him to flip a coin to decide whether or not to get married. The coin comes up tails, and they do get married.
Babe continues his cheating ways, while letting Connie think that he has a regular job. To fill the daytime hours when he is supposedly at his job, he persuades a stock broker friend to let him work as his assistant. He turns out to be good at it. Connie does not suspect anything until she sees Babe hide a stacked deck of cards in a secret compartment in the side of their card table prior to a fixed game one evening. She shuffles the cards and puts them back without anybody noticing. Babe and his confederates lose thousands of dollars as a result.
Afterwards, Babe is surprised when Connie is willing to stay with him, even knowing what he does for a living. He decides to take a trip to South America with Vane and Vargas, but without her. At the last minute, he realizes that he loves her, so he does not board the ship. Instead, he tells Collins to charge him with something, and, in return for a confession, he will serve 90 days in jail to pay for his past misdeeds and “come clean.” However, in order to keep Connie from discovering that he is in jail, he gets Vargas to send weekly cablegrams in his name to her from South America.
A pregnant Connie receives a visit from Kay just before Babe’s “return” from his travels. Kay starts to tell Connie about her husband’s shady past, but is surprised to find that Connie already knows and still loves Babe. After informing Connie that Babe is in jail, Kay gives up trying to get Babe back and wishes Connie luck. When Babe gets out of jail, he purchases some South American “souvenirs,” including a caged bird, from a local shop before he comes home to Connie. She asks him to tell her about where he has been. The film ends with Babe describing his fictional voyage to South America.
