You might remember the meaning of the character 赌 with this easy mnemonic:
Let's make a bet with these shells (贝). I'll give you ten (十) shells if you could dig one (一) big hole in the earth (土) and slash (丿) the sun (日) in half.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.