Gogol started to work on "The Gamblers" before June of 1836. The play was finished in 1842.

"The Gamblers" hit the stage in Moscow on February 5, 1843 (the same night as "The Marriage"), in the benefit of Shepkin who played Uteshitelny. The part of Zamukhryshkin was brilliantly performed by Prov Salovsky.
On S. Aksakov's evidence, the performance was approved by "common" public. A favorable review on the performance was published in "Moskovskiye Vedomosty" (on February 11, 1843) and it was noted that the intrigue "is led with incredible naturalness" and the characters' description testifies to Gogol's "mighty talent".
On April 26, 1843 the play was staged in St. Petersburg for the first time. The leading actors: Sosnitsky (Uteshitelny), Martynov (Ikharev), P. Karatygin (Zamukhryshkin), Samoylov (Shvokhnev). The play was accepted coldly. The critics explained the fact by the lack of taste within the public - the habitual visitors of the Aleksandrinsky theatre. "That the play", Belinsky wrote, "in its deep-laid truth, in its creative concept, in the artistic finishing of the characters, in the consistency in general and in the details, could have no sense and interest for the majority of the Aleksandrinsky theatre's public…" (V.G. Belinsky, T. VII, pp. 85-86).
The similar opinion was shared by the reviewer of "Repertory and Pantheon": "How skillfully the FABLE is led here, till the very end the spectator can't guess the outcome. The most desperate and faithful theatergoers confess it. What a skillful finishing of the characters! We don't know if the author himself meant to perform the play on stage. If he did, he was mistaken both because "The Gamblers" is not to the taste of our public, and because it is too difficult for the actors who got used to the parts that they receive from common stage suppliers and that are easy to perform". ("Repertory and Pantheon", 1843, b. 6, Critics, p. 97).