But let them see the black come up four times running, while they’re playing the red, and it’s “wrong.” Or let somebody tell them about this or that roulette house being crooked and they swallow it whole.
Here’s one thing that always gets them. We’ll say you’ve been playing the numbers and winning or losing a little, and you decide to make a good bet and you put, say, $25 on No. 28. I spin the ball and it lights in No. 28 and jumps out again and lights somewheres else and stays there. Then they’re all convinced that the ball belonged in No. 28 and wanted to be let alone, but I made a face at it or something and frightened it to wherever it finally stayed. They don’t seem to realize that ninety-eight times out of a hundred the ball jumps out of the first number it lands in. And oftener than not, it comes to rest in a number that’s a mile from where it lit first.
Listen: I’m fifty-six years old and I’ve been dealing for thirty years. I’ve dealt at Palm Beach, Miami, Havana, New York, French Lick, Saratoga and here, and I never yet seen a crooked wheel. Furthermore, I don’t know how you’d go about it to make it “wrong.” I’ve dealt for some fellas that would steal if they could, but they couldn’t for several reasons: They didn’t know how; they’d be at the mercy of their employees, who they’d have to take into the secret; they’d be closed up the minute they was suspected, even in places where they pay out pretty near a quarter of their receipts in graft.
Why, I worked a while in Cuba for a fella that would of used a blackjack if he hadn’t been able to make a big living out of his game. I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me. I knew he was a crook at heart, but I also knew his wheels was straight because they couldn’t be nothing else.
Well, one night they was a drunk in the place and he was playing hazard and squawking all the time and we all wanted him to lose his dough and go home. Finally he quit the hazard game and come to my table and put three one-hundred-dollar bills on No. 32. He asked me could he play that much. I said no, the limit was twenty-five.
Then he says to let him play it just once, so I looked up at the boss, who was standing near, and he nodded his head yes, to let her go. No. 32 it was, and the drunk staggered out with $10,500 of “our” money. The boss was wild and denied that he had ever give me the nod. I talked back to him and then he fired me.
Mind, I ain’t recommending you or nobody else to try and beat roulette. It’s a tough game, so tough that we wouldn’t have to cheat even if we could. But I’m saying that when you hear talk about some wheel somewheres being crooked, you can put it down as apple sauce and whoever’s telling it to you belongs at the County Goose Farm.
I’ll admit I’ve seen cheating, but it’s all done on your side of the table. We had a tricky pair, a man and a woman, here last season who was way ahead of the game before the boss give them the air. The man done the playing and the woman watched the ball. Here was their gag:
You’ll notice that the numbers 16, 19, 18, 21, 31 and 33 is all right close together on the wheel. Well, the fella would play a full stack of dollar checks between the 16 and 19, another stack between the 18 and 21 and a full stack each on 31 and 33. The gal would keep her eye on the ball till it was slowed down pretty near ready to drop. If it wasn’t going to drop in that section, she’d give the man the office and quick as a flash he’d grab all but three or four checks off each of the stacks he’d bet. If it was going to drop in that section, why of course he’d leave them all ride and make a nice profit.
I could name you a dozen ways that people like that try to beat us, and get away with it lots of times, too. To say nothing of the players, mostly women, who would be surprised and hurt if anybody questioned their honesty, but who will quietly sneak a check off a losing number or sneak one on a winning number after the ball has stopped rolling.
But now I’m going to tell you about a woman that cheated herself and her friends, and it happened right at this table the night after we opened up. The woman was a Mrs. Walter Hunt from Boston. It was her birthday and her husband give her a big dinner-party over at the hotel.
The party must of been wringing wet because everybody was feeling great when they got here.
Mrs. Hunt and three or four of her friends bought checks and for a while the game went along as usual with none of them winning or losing much. Then Hunt, who was playing at Joe’s table, sent some drinks over to his wife’s crowd and after they’d drunk them, they seemed to have a little more courage. One of the men in the gang said to Mrs. Hunt, he said:
“I’ve got an idear. Instead of us all piking along with dollar checks, let’s the five of us buy a couple of stacks of five-dollar checks and you play them and we will split.”
So Mrs. Hunt asked why she should play them and he said because it was her birthday.
“All right,” she said, “but don’t get mad at me if I lose your money.”
So they bought two stacks of five-dollar checks and she was going to play ten dollars on the
