Hollywood star embracing maiden in punt (6)
I believe the answer is:
gamble
'punt' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'hollywood star embracing maiden' is the wordplay.
'hollywood star' becomes 'gable' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'embracing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'maiden' becomes 'm' (cricket abbreviation).
'gable' enclosing 'm' is 'GAMBLE'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for gamble that I've seen before include "punt" , "Flutter" , "Bet -- Procter's partner" , "Take a risk" , "Take a chance, speculate" .)