The title character, played by John Vivyan, was an honest professional gambler who used his plush floating casino, the ship Fortuna, as his base of operations.

Blake Edwards developed the program as a retooling of his Willie Dante character from Four Star Playhouse, in which the role of a former gambler who operates Dante's Inferno, a San Francisco, California, nightclub, was played by Four Star studio boss Dick Powell.

Jack Arnold (director of Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and It Came from Outer Space) produced the show and directed fifteen of the thirty-four episodes.

He and Andamo operate a floating casino aboard a luxury yacht anchored outside an American port city.

The end credits state that Mr. Lucky was "Based on an Original Story: 'Bundles for Freedom' by Milton Holmes."

This story was also the basis of the 1943 motion picture Mr. Lucky, starring Cary Grant whose name in the film was Joe Adams.

To stay in business, they must pay a weekly bribe of $1000 to the country's corrupt president (Nehemiah Persoff).

Lucky wins enough money in a crap game to buy another yacht and a truck full of gambling equipment.

As the sponsor of one of the year's two big hits, Mr. Lucky (the other being Dennis the Menace), the powers-that-be sent down orders that the celebrated television character played by John Vivyan would henceforth have to be made respectabilized.

According to Henry Mancini in his autobiography, Blake Edwards himself canceled the show because of the format change: " "Mr. Lucky," a very stylish story about a suave, hip guy who runs a gambling boat somewhere off the California coast, was an immediate success.

They took umbrage that the character ran a gambling boat, and around the fourth or fifth show Blake began to get pressure from CBS.

The sponsor didn't seem to be concerned, but CBS insisted that Blake change Mr. Lucky's character from that of gambler to restaurateur and turn the ship into a restaurant.

"[6] Blake Edwards developed a Mr. Lucky movie for Paramount Pictures in the mid-1960s to follow his big screen adaptation of Peter Gunn for the studio.

Aaron Spelling and Blake Edwards later teamed to develop a movie of the week in 1980, Casino, starring Mike Connors as a similar gambler character.