i refuse
... is not illegal, Antares didn’t think of it as cheating either, he thought of it as a mathematician’s way to easy money. Most casino’s in Vegas use two or three decks at a time to deal a blackjack table, the Bellagio was no exception. This table consisted of a dealer and eight players, including Miguel. Three decks were being used to deal to all of the players, and the stack was growing thin. This is where Antares knew that it was his time to shine. He looked at other player’s bets, the smallest he saw was twenty dollars—the table minimum—and the largest was up to three hundred dollars. Miguel pushed his chips out in stacks of three thousand at a time. As he pushed more and more stacks, a crowd began to grow around him. Finally he had pushed almost all of his winnings out on the table, five stacks of three thousand. There was almost no way that he wasn’t going to double up here; the numbers were perfect in his head. He hit it big with his first card, a king of spades. Among the seven other players two showed a queen and one showed a jack, and Miguel started crunching numbers. Exactly as he expected, his second card was a jack—putting him in an excellent position. He was showing twenty, and he knew that the only cards left in the deck heavily favored him. As the dealer began dealing herself the cards he knew that there was one possible combination that could beat him, and it wasn’t going to happen. There was one ace left in the deck, and it was the dealer’s first card. This meant there were twenty two cards remaining, and all but one was between six and nine. Any card between six and nine gave Miguel the win and fifteen thousand more. The dealer turned her last card and began taking down all of the player’s chips. He couldn’t believe it, the only card that could ruin his night had been turned—the king of hearts. The numbers were running through his head a mile a minute as his disbelief sank in. “FOUR POINT FIVE! FOUR POINT FIVE PERCENT CHANCE! THERE IS NO WAY!” he shouted as he stood up. Every walkie talkie in the place set off at this point. This declaration was perfectly correct, and every last security guard on the floor was headed towards Miguel at this point. As he was ripped out of his...