Capítulo 6: Feeling Lucky?

It took Michael only two hours to reach Winstar casino. Even though America does not have much trains or buses; the Country has plenty of highways. Michael first went to the local branch of his bank and withdrew $5,000 as starting capital. He grimaced as he noticed that there only one thousand dollars left in his account.

For a second Michael hesitated; he could still play it safe and go back to his small town and continue living there. He would be lying if he said he was not afraid; there really was too much at stake here. However, he thought about all those times he wished for a good opportunity when he was young; he knew if he gave up now he would loathe himself in the future. With his will sharpened he walked towards the casino.

As soon as he entered the casino the ridiculous lights hit him, almost turning him blind. It was still dark outside but it was brighter than the day in here. He read that casinos had extravagant lights to mess with the biological clocks of players. Casinos naturally have no clocks so that players do not notice the passing of time. Casinos win by keeping players playing; that is simply the way odds work.

He first changed out the cash for chips and headed to the blackjack table. He picked blackjack because he can use his ridiculous intelligence to win. Blackjack is a fairly simple game; you have to try to get cards that add up to 21 without going over the limit. The player or dealer with the closest sum wins.

Bryan Catterick was a senior dealer and had been working in the casino industry for 15 years. Frequently the casino manager would ask him to show the new recruits the ropes and even ask him for performance evaluations of other dealers. He knew his promotion to Floor manager was just around the corner; so he was very excited and cautious because he did not want to lose his promotion at the last minute. He took over table 15 and started a new game of blackjack. He noticed a new player joining; the young man had casual clothes and was frequently staring at the lights like a country bumpkin. Hopefully, the boy had deep pockets because he looked like easy cash.

Michael entered the game cautiously. The cards were passed around and he got a pair of nine's which meant he was pretty close to 21. He doubled down, taking up the gamble. There were two other players; one of them passed and the other also doubled down. The cards were turned over and he won the first round. As the rounds went on, he kept winning nearly 90% of the time.

He was suspiciously lucky. The Advanced tier gambling skill coupled with his photographic memory meant he could basically tell which cards all the players had. He kept winning and winning and soon a crowd was gathered around watching him.

Bryan was sweating profusely; at first, he thought the boy just had some beginners luck but as the game went on the boy kept winning and defying all odds. This naturally attracted a crowd which also attracted his manager. He felt like he was standing on lava. For some reason he had a bad premonition about the boy; call it dealers intuition, that boy was trouble for him. As time went on the boy was up to $50,000 and finally got up and left. Whew! if he stayed any longer Bryan would have asked someone else to take over and walked away from the table. He felt it was better to get chewed out by his manager than deal with the troublesome boy.

Michael was ecstatic; Within two hours he multiplied his money by ten. Not to mention, he verified that the gambling skill really worked. He felt like he was a god in here; He could look at a slot machine and tell how many more turns until it would pay out. He went over to a machine that his miraculous intuition told him was going to pay out soon.

This was going to be his last test; if his skill could really tell him when the machine was going to payout then he knew his skill was the real deal; he could make a fortune gambling.

"ching" He popped a coin in and turned the lever. It rolled and landed on mixed symbols; meaning he did not win anything. "Ching" he tried again.

"ping ping ping"

The slot machine hit a jackpot payout of $18,000. Fortunately, he was in a corner so it did not attract too much attention but he still noticed the manager marching towards him.

"Congratulations sir. Here is your ticket; please take it to the cash register to redeem your prize." The manager was clearly not happy about the jackpot and after sending Michael away he had technicians brought over to check the machine for tampering. After a quick check-up, they declared the machine was untouched leaving the manager glancing at Michael's retreating figure.

Michael walked over to the cash register and redeemed his jackpot prize and about half of the chips from earlier. He wanted to save some chips for tomorrow. He walked out of the casino with $43,000 in his backpack. In reality, it was placed in his inventory. He immediately took a taxi to the bank and deposited it. Seeing his new balance of $44,000 he felt delighted. He went to the motel he booked and went straight to bed. He was planning on training but honestly, he was just too tired. Too many things happened today and his life got flipped upside down.

The next day he woke up and spent all morning training. He was planning on avoiding casinos in the morning anyway as there will be more people in the evening allowing him to blend in better. After training, he ate lunch while contemplating his future plans. He was definitely going to call Clark and quit his job. Fortunately, Texas was a work at will State meaning you can quit anytime with no prior notice. It was a mean thing to do; However, Clark definitely deserved it.

Michael was just sad that he cannot do it in person to see Clark's face. He called Clark and could not reach him so he just left a voicemail explaining that he got a better job and is quitting. He then thought about gambling; He did not want to draw the wrath of a casino so he planned on winning a maximum of $150,000 per day at a casino. That might sound like a lot of money to the average person but to a casino that is not even pocket change. He was also going to utilize the fact that there are over 100 casinos in Oklahoma and alternate between them to stay as low-key as possible.

Michael did not want to spend the rest of his life gambling. He just wanted to buy some combat and business skills. After seeing the effectiveness of the skills, Michael was confident that with the Stock Market skill and his intelligence he can establish a successful investment firm. The Forbes list of richest people in the world was filled with people from Wall Street. He also figured that these people had way more money than they let on; after all, they are professional bankers, who can be better money launderers than them?

Michael did not plan on fighting for a spot on Wall Street; nevertheless, he could start his own private investment firm and gradually accumulate wealth. He also knew he wanted to go to college since he could now afford it. However, it was September so the semester already started; it was best to wait until next August and start next year.

After lunch he formed a rough plan for the immediate future; he then headed to the casino. When he arrived at the casino he headed straight for blackjack.

Bryan was starting a new game when he saw the same boy from yesterday heading to his table. He cursed inwardly and hoped the boy's luck ran out. After an hour though Bryan watched the boy walk away with $60,000 leaving him standing in a pool of despair.

Michael then headed to a craps game. This game was simple all you had to do was try to correctly guess the dice. His skill allowed him to guess accurately 60% of the time so he kept winning in the long term. Finally, after winning $30,000 he decided to stop and cashed in and left.

Today he made $90,000, seeing his bank balance reach six figures Michael understood why people got addicted to gambling. Just two days ago he came to Oklahoma with only $5,000 and now he had $134,000 balance. He planned to visit Winstar throughout the coming week before moving on to different casinos.

Winstar Casino: Conference Hall

Ronald Miller was the general manager of Winstar Casino and Resort. He was having his weekly meeting with all his assistant managers. "The resort is doing well. There is a 10% increase in bookings. The TV ads paid off it seems. So how is the casino doing?" Ronald turned to his casino manager Shirley.

"the casino is doing very well, we made $7.1 million just last week." Shirley replied

"good, did any noteworthy individuals visit?" Ronald was naturally referring to cheaters; every day there would be people trying to cheat and earn a quick buck. Most just fail and were not worth his time. However, there are occasional ones that he needs to deal with in creative ways.

"Well, there is this one teenage boy named Michael. He has been mostly playing blackjack and he is winning nearly $140,000 every day. He does not seem to be cheating, at least not with any methods that we know of. I think he is counting cards."

Ronald did not believe Shirley because he did not believe anyone could count six decks of cards. That would mean he would have to keep track of over 300 cards. What kind of super genius could do that? would they gamble at casinos?

"Keep an eye on him and tally his winnings every day; if he goes over a million dollars then grab him on his way home." Ronald was not too worried; if this Michael really got out of hand he had plenty of ways of dealing with him.

The week flew by quickly. Michael trained in the morning and afternoon and gambled in the evening. By Saturday Michael had spent a week at Winstar casino and earned $910,000. He decided to move on from this casino; not knowing how close he was to bringing a disaster to himself.

He was too tired to deposit his cash and decided to do it tomorrow morning. The envelope in his backpack was just a decoy anyway as the cash was in his inventory. As he opened the door he saw a man in a ski mask pointing a gun at him." Don't move hands up" Michael barely got his hands up when he was hit at the back of his head and was knocked out.