Continued from Part Eleven

Two weekends later, Snyder sat on the bed in Amanda’s hotel room. Amanda put her hands on her black jeans. “So, what do you have to beat the house?”

Snyder pointed at his head.

Amanda blinked. “What?”

“I’m wearing a wig.”

“Looks like your hair to me.”

“That means I did a good job. The wig conceals a device that interfaces with the algorithms that run the casino’s games.” Most of the games were holographic and controlled by random algorithms that favored the house.

“So, if I go to the roulette wheel.”

“You’ll win.”

“And if I play the slots.”

“You’ll win.”

“What if I shoot craps?”

She had to mention the one thing they still didn’t do electronically, as well as table poker. “Stay away from craps and table poker, unless you have the skill for it.”

“Poker’s boring.”

What was she talking about? Poker was the only game that actually required some skill and hence worth his time. “To each their own. Now, when we’re out there, you’re not going to win every game.”

“Why not?”

“You’re casino security, a lady walks in and, on her first play, wins a $15,000 jackpot on your slot machine, then wins another, and takes about six of them in a row. The odds of hitting even one are more than 100,000 to 1. You think they might get a little suspicious?”

“Good point.”

“Don’t play all your chips at roulette, either. You’ll lose some of those, too.”

She smiled. “You got this figured out pretty good.”

“Hell yeah. In ten weekends, we can wipe out your ICA debt if we play this right.”

She stared into Snyder’s eyes. He stared back. Amanda sat beside him on the bed and kissed him.

Whoa. Snyder pulled away. “Come on, let’s hit the casino. We’ll finish this later.”

She cupped his head in her hands. “You’re assuming I’ll let you later.” She released him and they walked out together, whizzed down the shaft and sprung out into a billion glittering lights. They strode across the casino to a vacant slot machine.

 Once she settled in the hot seat, the tag reader light blinked red as it accessed hers, then turned solid green. She pulled the lever.

Three cherries.

Nice, had nothing to do with me. But hitting the jackpot after hitting the cherries wouldn’t be believable.

She pulled time after time, earning no payout for ten straight pulls before getting a cherry. Another streak of bad luck went twenty pulls with nothing.

Snyder communicated with the algorithm. The for-show lights on the machine buzzed, and a horn sounded. A slew of metal tokens came shooting out. While no one used coins anymore, the image of thousands of coins spitting out upon a jackpot was so ingrained, casinos had to do it.

The screen flashed, “$32,315.25.”

A man in a black suit ran over. “Let’s get your picture.”

Amanda smiled wide for the 3D camera. Her image would be put up next to the others in the lobby, the icons that got some people to risk the mortgage money.

Snyder winced at that nag. They choose to gamble, that’s their business.

Amanda grabbed some casino chips. Snyder smiled. It’d be over to the roulette wheel to win a couple thousand more and then back upstairs.

Snyder blinked. What was going on? The roulette table was the other way. Oh no!

Amanda stood at the craps table with a set of dice.

Snyder ran over to her. “Amanda—”

“It’s captain in public.”

“We talked about this beforehand.”

“Don’t worry, Snyder. I’m good at craps, and I’m on a hot streak.”

Continued…Next Thursday

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