Sucker bet - James Swain [81]
“Correct. Now, both of these bets are risky. When you split pairs, you double your wager. The same thing occurs when you double-down. But according to Basic Strategy, it’s a good time to do this, because the dealer is probably going to lose. Make sense?”
The elders said yes. Valentine glanced at Harry Smooth Stone and the three accused dealers. Pancakes of sweat were showing through their clothes, their lives about to be changed forever.
Picking up his hand, Valentine flipped his cards. His second card was a ten. He dropped the cards on the table so the ten was showing, the six now hidden.
“Let’s pretend I just dealt the cards, only this time, instead of having a six as my faceup card, I have a ten.” He pointed at the first player’s sevens. To the elder on the far end of the table he said, “How would you play these cards now?”
The elder looked at the chart. “I’d take a card.”
“You wouldn’t split them?”
“No,” the elder said.
Pointing at the eight and two, he said, “What about this hand?”
“I’d also take a card,” the elder said.
“Not double-down?”
The elder shook his head.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what Basic Strategy says you should do,” the elder said.
Holding his two cards, Valentine walked forward. He flipped the six faceup and held it in his right hand. In his left, he held the faceup ten.
“Think of the six as a little rock, the ten as a big rock. These cards force the players into making certain decisions. The little rock hurts the dealer, while the big rock helps the dealer. Everyone with me?”
The elders nodded. So did Gladys and his son.
“So, here’s how the scam works. Your dealers have a tiny piece of sandpaper hidden on their clothing.”
“Objection,” the defendants’ attorney said. “There’s no evidence.”
Gladys Soft Hands rose and asked that the bag of evidence found in Karl Blackhorn’s locker be introduced. A tribal policeman brought the bag forward. The expired aspirin bottle was removed. The policeman opened it and displayed the piece of sandpaper.
“Oh,” the attorney said.
Valentine continued. “Your dealers are sanding the edges of the cards in their games. They sand one edge if the card is a big rock, another edge if the card is a little rock. That way, they know the cards by feel.
“The cheating happens during the deal. When the dealer deals his first card to himself, he feels what it is. When the second card comes out, he feels that, as well. Then he flips the higher of the two cards faceup. The big rock gets exposed, and the players are forced into making bad decisions. They have no chance of winning.”
“Why didn’t this show up in the take?” the lead elder asked.
The take was the amount of money each game was expected to make based upon its average winning percentage. Valentine pointed a finger at Harry Smooth Stone, who had shrunk in his chair. “Harry took care of that. He was skimming the difference and keeping it for himself and his dealers.”
“Surely our accountants would have picked up on this.”
“Are your accountants part of the tribe?” Valentine asked.
The lead elder bristled; so did everyone else at the table. Valentine decided he’d had enough of being nice, and got up close to the guys making the decisions. “Your accountants are involved. So are several other employees, including Billy Tiger. You can’t have this much cheating going on without lots of people knowing. The fact is, gentlemen, you’re running a crooked operation. You need to clean up your act, or risk getting exposed and ruining it for all the other Indian casinos around the country.
“You can start by educating yourselves in the games. Then you need to change a few policies. Like hiring ex-convicts to work for you. The fact is, you’re all guilty, either of stupidity or of not having enough common sense to police yourselves more closely.”
He heard Gladys let out a deep sigh. It was obviously not the closing argument she would have chosen. The elders went into a huddle. It lasted a few minutes, then the lead elder told Harry Smooth Stone and the three dealers to rise.
“Do you have anything to say in your defense?