Mardock Scramble

All the while Balot’s bets were progressing steadily from bets that paid double her stake to those that paid triple.

Column bets: choosing one of the three lines of numbers to bet on, excluding the 0 and the 00.

Douzaine bets: choosing one of 1-12, 13-24, or 25-36. This also paid out triple her original stake.

Weaving backward and forward from one of these bets to the other, Balot and Oeufcoque gradually started piecing together a picture of how the croupier spun both the wheel and the ball.

The ball would almost always do between eighteen and twenty rotations. In particular, whenever the croupier focused on the spin, it would be closer to eighteen full rotations. Oeufcoque calculated the amount of time it took from the ball’s release to when it first started dipping, all the while computing the odds that it would hit a particular pin and the angle at which it was most likely to hit the bowl.

There were three key factors involved in the spin. Three states: the numbers were easily visible, or they could just be made out when following them around, or they were blurred beyond perception. After watching a number of full spins, Balot and Oeufcoque found they could work out the point at which one state transitioned to another.

It wasn’t an easy task to pinpoint it exactly—but it was absolutely essential if Oeufcoque and Balot were to stand a chance in predicting the croupier’s habits.

All the while, numbers were appearing inside the glove on Balot’s right hand.

Oeufcoque’s magic numbers.

The numbers contained in each of the eight segments of the wheel, divided according to the positions of the pins. Each segment was given a name, and the idea was to accurately predict the path of the ball as it bounced from one segment to another.

First there was North Side: 25-29-12-8.

Then North East: 19-31-18-6-21.

Followed by East Side: 14-2-0-28-9,

South East: 14-2-0-28-9,

South Side: 26-30-11-7,

South West: 20-32-17-5-22,

West Side: 34-15-3-24-36,

and North West: 13-1-00-27-10.

There was a fine line between success and total failure, and the difference would come down to whether they were able to determine, in an instant, which segment the ball was heading for.

This was where Oeufcoque really came into his own.

Every time the ball fell, he could highlight in an instant which segment it would hit.

Furthermore, this was hardly cheating. Any player was allowed to have a crib sheet at the table with them, showing the arrangement of the numbers. Indeed, it was fair to say it was standard practice among regulars.

You could even buy official guide sheets containing such information—and much more besides—at the casino’s own kiosks or in the hotel lobby.

The question was not whether you were allowed this information, but whether you could you use it quickly and accurately enough for it to be useful.

And could you then go on to use that information to work out how the angle of the ball—as it ricocheted off the pins—would vary according to when and how the ball and wheel were spun.

The table was divided into four blocks, and if, for example, 00 (in block A) was at position B when the ball started to fall, you were talking about a spin of roughly ninety degrees, or one quarter of a full rotation of the wheel.

Oeufcoque was able to perform complex calculations to cut out the intermediary steps and focus on just the crucial factor: the point in the rotation at which the ball would fall into the wheel.

When Bell Wing put her mind to it, this was at the point of a full rotation: 360 degrees. Otherwise, it was almost always around the ninety-degree mark.

There were some variations in results, of course. But these outcomes were because Bell Wing was deliberately manipulating the spin. Oeufcoque could tell this because these were the only times when the ball seemed to move with a different sort of motive than usual. The motive being to deliberately inject some variety into the figures.

The better the croupier, the more constant the spin and therefore the easier it was for the numbers to start falling into a predictable pattern. That was why the croupiers were under strict orders from the house to ensure that there were deliberate variations in the number of rotations, the speed of the wheel, and the angle at which the ball hit the wheel.

Hardly any croupiers were skilled enough to do this with 100 percent accuracy when customers were around and the chips were down. Still, Bell Wing was exceedingly precise. Balot found it somewhat ironic, therefore, that it was the croupier’s very accuracy and precision that allowed Oeufcoque to pick up on her movements and intentions. In other words, it was precisely because Bell Wing was so skilled that Oeufcoque was able to get the measure of her game so quickly.

Normally it would have taken even the most experienced professional many hours and tens of thousands of dollars in bets before they had a chance of working out what Balot and Oeufcoque had already managed to learn.

Balot succeeded because of the intense training she’d had from the Doctor and of course because she had Oeufcoque in hand. It took her less than an hour and less than ten grand in bets. With this minimal outlay of time and funds, Balot had learned all the biases of the wheel, the unconscious habits of the croupier, and even the nature of the house orders—the fiat from on high that compelled croupiers to mix things up a little.

Balot felt all this through her skin.

Step by step she raised the stakes and started betting on longer and longer odds.

She bet on the line—placing her chips over one of the lines on the layout, signifying a bet on all six numbers down the line, with a payout of 5:1 when she won.

She placed a five-number bet on 0, 00, and numbers 1-3, payout 6:1.

She placed a corner bet; her chips down where four numbers intersected. Payout 8:1.

She bet on the street: three numbers—payout 11:1.

She went further, betting on longer and longer odds even if she didn’t win.

Split: betting on two numbers, payout 17:1.

Then back to the straight bet, the single number, payout 35:1.

She didn’t win these bets—they were reliant more on luck than skill at this stage. They were feints, for the benefit of the croupier and the other punters.

On top of that there were other ways of betting. Regional variations to the rules, as seen in some Continental casinos. Within Eggnog Blue, however, this particular table was the only place the variations were seen—Bell Wing had no doubt persuaded the house to permit them at her table.

The permitted variations were threefold. One was finaal—a bet on the last digit. So, if the player called “finaal plein three,” informing one of the dealers of his intentions, he’d be betting a hundred dollars on numbers 3, 13, 23, and 33. This bet had a payout of between 8:1 and 11:1.

There was also the jeu zero. Playing on and around the 0, as the name suggested, this bet involved the three numbers, totaling six, on either side: 35-14-2-0-28-9-26. Four hundred-dollar chips would pay out thirty of the same if the ball landed on the 26, or if it landed on any of the other numbers. This bet, though, was much more relevant on the Continental wheel layout and not much use here unless you were particularly paranoid about the dealer aiming for the 0.

The third variation on standard rules was the en prison rule on evens bets, where a 0 would cause all evens bets to be frozen rather than simply lost. The player would then have the option of either having half their original bet back or letting it ride through to the next spin.

Balot exploited this rule to the fullest, and whenever she aimed for the 0 she also placed an evens bet at the same time.

She did so to keep her losses to a minimum even as she moved to a more aggressive style of play, but more importantly, to get some real clues as to the croupier’s mindset.