Staring at the money in his account, a huge smile appeared on his face.
Who knew that luck was still on his side? Fifty thousand dollars wasn't a small amount by any means, especially considering that he won it using only ten dollars.
"It's good to know that you are still watching over me," the man said as he looked up to the sky after calming down a bit.
"You won?!" the lady shouted, just as surprised.
"Yes!!" he replied.
Hearing him, the lady immediately ran to check, and just as he had seen, she too saw the massive popup. A slight frown appeared on her face, but it quickly changed to a smile.
She had watched hundreds of people go for this particular bet over the years with hopes of winning the money, but they had all always returned home empty-handed.
If this wasn't a true homeless guy, she would immediately begin to ask questions to know if he had hacked the game, but the man didn't even know how to register an account, so she saw the possibility to be extremely low.
"Congratulations, sir," she said as required, both happy and sad at the same time.
Happy that her store had helped someone get off the streets because no matter how useless a person was, they would immediately know their priority in the man's situation.
However, she was also sad because betting companies didn't work like that. They were set up so they could collect, not give.
Since winning their huge games was usually impossible, with incredibly low probabilities of so happening, they usually aimed for taking the money from the user.
Now they may reduce the payout a bit for the next payment as some form of punishment, but what did it matter? From what she had heard, most times the winners give or share their newly gained wealth with the store owner to showcase their appreciation.
"Thank you," the man answered as his smile slowly vanished.
"What's the problem?"
"Can I make a deal with you?"
"What deal?"
"I was born homeless, which means I don't have anything, not even a bank account. I learned all I know from the TV store across the street from where I stay, so I will reward you with five thousand dollars if you can help me get a new phone, a plan, and buy some clothes," the man said.
"Oh....oh!" she replied as realization set in.
The main problem here wasn't the winning; it was about how to withdraw the money. He didn't have anything, so where would he withdraw the money to?
"Are you sure you trust me to do this for you?"
"I don't, but we are known to do this as long as there is a profit to be gained," the man replied.
"Excellent, okay then, there's a Stark phone store just up the street."
"That's good then. Give me your account number, and I'll send you five hundred dollars. That should be enough, right?" the man said.
"Here," she replied excitedly.
Soon the money was received, and based on some sort of mutual trust, she placed the man in charge of the store while she took his money to fulfill his wishes.
Normally, the man would be worried that she would run away with the money he had given to her, but she didn't look like a fool, so he trusted that she would come back. After all, only a fool would run away with five hundred dollars when five thousand dollars could be theirs if they completed their task.
"Wait... Did she say Stark?" the man asked, finally noticing the odd thing in her statements.
Since he now had access to a computer, he quickly minimized the betting software as he went straight to the browser.
Tony Stark
He typed in the familiar name, and immediately all sorts of soul-crushing results appeared. The worst part of it all was that they didn't refer to him as a comic character.
Rather, they referred to him as the son of Anthony and Maria Stark, current CEO of Stark Industries and a full-time adrenaline junkie.
"Oh God, no!!!"
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