late sorry –

Finding a table, he put three thousand on red, hit five red straight off without him having to help, and noticed the man in the dark, expensive-looking suit who was watching him from the other side of the podium in the middle of the pit. The close-in supervisor woman whose table he was playing on was watching closely as well. Right! I’ve been noticed! Let’s start playing games. He left five thousand on red and pocketed one thousand. A flick and twenty-three red. Five thousand. He left his bet on red, but with this spin, he made sure the number was black, so his bet lost. He pulled chips back out of his pocket and put three thousand on black. Twenty-nine black. Did the same as the previous time and put one thousand in his pocket and left five thousand on black.

The ball bobbled and bounced and settled into eleven black without needing help, and he pocketed the five-thousand. On the next spin, he needed to help the ball into fifteen black, and he pocketed another five thousand. He was up seven in total at this table, so he let the ball go where it wanted on the next spin. It bounced into two, then zero, then rolled over into twenty-eight black, and he had won again. He left the five thousand on black again, and this time it came up seven red, and the dealer swept his chips away. Of course, he was now up twelve thousand. He sauntered over to the bar, had a drink to soothe his nerves, then cashed four thousand out at the cashier. Then he went and had dinner before he returned to the cashier for another four thousand cash out.

He wandered around the whole establishment for a bit. Found a spot where he could sit and ogle some pretty girls having drinks before going out on the town. He was mentally too exhausted to do any more, and his head was now pounding, so he waited another hour before he noticed the shift changing in the cashier’s booth. In the process, his headache decreased somewhat. He delayed another thirty minutes before cashing out his remaining four thousand in chips, and then he headed out to the front, where he grabbed a cab back to his hotel. Once he was back in his room, he counted out the money he had made and found it came to twenty-eight thousand dollars for just that one day! Holy shit!

The problem now was, what did he do with the money? If he banked it, the IRS would be all over him, although he supposed that for this time around, if he banked a bit here and there over time, they probably wouldn’t notice. Maybe. And pay for everything in cash. Hmm. The trouble was that if he openly won big amounts like this in the casinos and cashed them out legally, it was not really the fact he would have to pay tax that was the problem. Rather, he suspected the real problem would be the casinos realizing how much he was winning and banning him from entry. Although if he did that win, win, lose type thing regularly, it may take them a while to twig. Hmm. Okay, he thought to himself, tomorrow I’ll try that at another casino.

The Bellagio looked nice, what with that fountain display out the front which he sat and watched for a while. They had three five-thousand max tables to choose from, which was even better. He plonked down a thousand.

“How do you want it?” Asked the dealer.

“You got any thousand chips?”

The dealer boggled and then glanced over at his cash chips. “No. Only five hundreds.”

“Two of them then, please.”