Gamble played his first year as a pro with the
Vancouver Canucks of the
WHL, and also played two games in the NHL for the New York Rangers. His performance impressed other NHL teams, and the Boston Bruins chose him in the
1959 intra-league draft. After a year with the
Providence Reds in the
AHL, Gamble became the team's starting goalie in 1960–61. During the next four seasons he played mainly in the minors with the
Portland Buckaroos,
Kingston Frontenacs and
Springfield Indians, and was called up by the Bruins for 28 games in 1961–62. Gamble refused to go back to the minors in
1964–65, and so the Bruins suspended him from Springfield for the entire season. The following year he was traded to the
Toronto Maple Leafs. In his first few seasons in Toronto, Gamble was a back-up to
Hall of Famers
Johnny Bower and
Terry Sawchuk. He recorded four shutouts in six games in March 1966. In
1966–67, when the Leafs won the
Stanley Cup, he played in 23 regular season games and rang up a record of 5–10–4 and a GAA of 3.39. However, he was sent to the minors to the
Tulsa Oilers before the trading deadline; as a result, he did not spend the whole season with Toronto, and his name was left off the Stanley Cup. With the loss of Sawchuk in the 1967 NHL expansion draft, Gamble saw more action with the Leafs and established himself as a solid, workhorse goalie. He played in 41 games in
1967–68, 62 in
1968–69 and 52 in
1969–70. He played in the 1968 NHL All-Star game and was named its Most Valuable Player. He was the last Leaf goalie to play without a mask, finally donning one in 1970-71. Gamble, along with a first-round selection (
Pierre Plante) in the
1971 NHL Amateur Draft, was traded to the
Philadelphia Flyers for
Bernie Parent and a second-round pick (
Rick Kehoe) in the same draft as part of a three-way deal which also involved the
Boston Bruins on
January 31, 1971. The Leafs also sent
Mike Walton to the Bruins who shipped
Rick MacLeish and
Danny Schock to the Flyers. Gamble served mainly as a back-up to
Doug Favell with the Flyers for the rest of that season, appearing in 11 regular season games and two playoff games. The following year, he began to compete for the starting role. He put in a run of solid performances which ended when he suffered a
heart attack during a 3–1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on February 8, 1972. Although he fell at one point during the game, he did not complain of problems until afterward, and traveled with the team to Oakland on February 9 for a game that evening against the California Golden Seals. As his chest pains continued, Gamble was admitted to an Oakland hospital where it was found that he had had a heart attack. Gamble did not play in the NHL again. Apparently, Gamble went missing for a number of years after 1972, with a multiple news stories stating that neither family nor former associates knew where he resided as late as 1979. On December 29, 1982, after a practice session the evening before with an old-timers hockey team, the Niagara Falls Flames, Gamble woke up with chest pains, and died at a hospital in Niagara Falls, Ontario, at the age of 44. Gamble was inducted into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1984. ==Urban legends regarding Gamble==