What metaphors are used in Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion?

Didion uses gambling as a metaphor for life choices.

"When I was ten years old my father taught me to access quite rapidly the shifting probabilities on a craps layout: I could trace a layout in my sleep, the field here and the pass line all around, even money on Big Six or Eight, five-for-one on Any Seven. Always when I play back my father's voice it is with a professional rasp, it goes as it lays, don't do it the hard way".