Q&A with high-stakes poker player Dario Diofebi

Dario Diofebi was different. He would return to his rental each night and take notes to remember details of the real-life characters he met at the tables.

“I thought, ‘Someday, I might want to write about this life.’ It would be a really good novel because these people are so colorful. Anytime I dared imagine my first book coming out, it was about these characters I met while playing poker in Vegas.”

The Rome native only planned to play professional poker in his early 20s before he explored a career with real heartbreak, angst and risk — professional writer.

His debut novel, “Paradise, Nevada” (Bloomsbury, $28), will be released April 6, and it’s already garnering industry accolades. Publishers Weekly recently included Diofebi on its list of top writers to watch this year.

Set in 2014-15, the story revolves around a fictional hotel on the Strip where a high-stakes poker player, a clinically depressed cocktail waitress and a reporter fight for their souls.

How did your years as a professional poker player in Las Vegas inform the book?

Dario Diofebi: I lived in Vegas from 2013 to 2016. A few friends and I decided that playing live poker in casinos was the wave of the future after the golden age of online poker died down. So we moved to Vegas. The idea was to spend time in the biggest casinos in the world and make a living while having Las Vegas as home base. Vegas is also one of the few cities in the world where poker is available year-round. Any day of the year, there is a decent-sized poker game happening.

What was the hardest thing to get used to when you moved to Sin City?

The hardest thing for me was definitely the space. I grew up in an urban city. Things in Vegas look like they’re close together, but then you’re walking 3 miles to get to them.

How did you make the monumental change from professional poker player to novelist?

I decided in my 20s to play poker as a job, but never really thought of it as a long-term career. The truth is I always wanted to be a writer, but had no life plan attached to it. Even more than poker, there was so much risk involved in becoming a writer and uncertainty in that life.

Yet all of your years in Vegas became fodder for your first novel. Was that the plan?

Vegas was such a meaningful, life-changing experience that I had no doubt this is what I wanted to write about in the future. It’s why I took notes at night. At the tables, I even told myself to memorize the details because they needed to be in a book. There are so many life stories you hear every day at a poker table from people who have completely different backgrounds. It is a novel come to life.

When did you know it was time to leave Las Vegas for New York to pursue writing?

That wasn’t much of a decision. I wanted to get into a MFA program in order to take writing seriously. Late in 2015, I applied to several schools because I was told you never get in on your first try. I happened to get into NYU, which was impossible to turn down. I’ll never forget that I was in the Ellis Island Casino parking lot when I got the email. I thought, ‘OK, I guess I’m done playing poker.’ Then I went to the Bellagio and played one last time.

Did you win?

I did win when it came to NYU. I can’t remember if I won at the table that day. If I did win, you would have found me at Monta Ramen on Spring Mountain or Lotus of Siam. That’s usually where I went after I won. Just saying those places makes me want to jump on a plane.