Chapter 5

Walk into a casino. Any casino. You'll be picked up by at least a half dozen cameras. Your picture will be taken, and massively complex computer algorithms will process your face. The pattern of your face, your eyes related to your mouth, the wrinkles of your skin, and even your hair will be crunched, eaten, digested, and spat back out as a series of numbers. Your entire appearance is reduced to a mathematical series. Then they try to compare your numbers to every other number they have -- and they have a lot of numbers. If the numbers come close enough, a person is alerted, who does an actual sight check. You match? They know who you are, or at least assume they do. High rollers can be met five feet from the door; known cheats are shown back out in half as many steps without any ill gotten gains.

Today, I needed them to think me the high roller as I walked out of the door with thousands of ill gotten gains. I was going to be a unknown cheat, and walk out with an invitation to come back.

First I had to beat the cameras. When floor managers knew everyone by sight, I'm sure my methods wouldn't have worked. The computers, however, could always make a mistake, an angle miscalculated. With me, they would.

I had done this before, but never to this scale in a single day. I forced myself to stroll calmly across to the casino, surveyed it for a moment as if I had never been on the floor of the Bellagio before. After a moment, I strolled over to a casino host. I walked straight up as if I owned the place, and asked, "I would like to transfer some money from an international account. Who will help me?"

The casino host had the look of a career employee, and took my brusqueness in stride. He politely gestured towards the cage, and walked with me over to it. His composure broke slightly when I tipped him with a one hundred dollar bill as he left me in the line. I could see him speaking quietly into his radio as he walked away. My myth for the day was beginning.

I stood in line, presenting every appearance of being impatient. Inwardly I was calm, even placid; I knew the line would move, and I would reach the front eventually. My persona for the day, however, was not nearly as patient. One of the cashiers finally called me over, "Here, sir."

"Finally," I said with exasperation. "I was about to go to that awful Eiffel Tower thing across the street. I'd like to withdraw thirty thousand dollars."

The cashier was a more recent employee than the professional host who had walked me over. She blinked at the amount, despite the fact that it wasn't terribly high. I would have rather started with a higher bank roll, but I hadn't had time to save up for this escapade.

"Of course, sir, which bank?"

"Sainte Catherine de Buis, Switzerland."

The cashier slipped a piece of paper and a pen through the shield of the cage. "Please write your account number down, and I'll arrange for the transfer."

I picked up the pen, and scribbled my account number down. "I've heard such wonderful things about the games here. I haven't played here before, but it's my first time in Vegas. I decided I'd play for a few minutes while waiting for my meetings later today." The cashier was nodding politely, her focus on the computer slightly off to her side. I knew, however, that this conversation was being recorded, and after I began winning, it would be reviewed.

"Can I please see some idenfitication?"

I pulled my new papers from my back pocket. My passport was from Hungary. Today I was Mihai Bathory, and my dark hair and grey eyes matched the passport photo, as did my horrific signature. Her eyes flicked from the picture to my face and back, and then she took it over to photocopy the document. A quick pass under a blacklight verified it to their satisfaction; conveniently, it was actually a real passport acquired in a more calm period of my life.

"The transfer was approved," the cashier said as she returned the passport to me.

"Of course it was," I asked, honestly offended. I was here to take their money at the tables not from the cashier.

"How would you like it?"

"Oh, hundreds would be a good start," I answered. "One thousand in twenty- fives."

"Very good." The cashier began counting out the chips into a chip rack. She stacked two ten-high rows of hundreds, then an additional nine. The forty twenty- fives were piled alongside, and she called over her manager to check her cashout. I signed the withdrawl slip with a barely legible scrawl. My real signature wasn't much better, and having a slopping signature made it easier for me to remember how to sign for every identity that I slipped through.

"Would you like an escort?"

"Why, yes, yes I would. You do have roulette, I hope." I slipped a hundred chip into Tammy's tip jar, joining the ones, fives, and odd twenty already there. Her eyes flicked to the tip jar, and I was walking away with the security guard before her eyes returned to me. I knew she would be happy to see me when I came back to cash out later, even if the rest of the casino was rather sad to see me go.

“So, Jimmy,” I read off the guard’s name tag, “where are the roulette wheels?”

“Right this way, sir.” I could really get used to all the sir-ing that went on when money got waved around, although I’d rather that for once it was out of true respect. Oh well, I knew I was a ne’er- do- well. I could buy their respect if I had to. Jimmy led me through the floor of the casino to a roulette wheel with a twenty-five dollar minimum. I flipped him a hundred chip as he turned to walk away.

The secret to being rich is, from what I’ve figured out, the ability to separate needs from wants, and saving the wants until you’ve had all you need. Some sound financial planning probably wouldn’t hurt, either. The secret to appearing rich, however, is to throw money around. I wasn’t rich, but I was on my way to having a whole lot of people convinced that I was.

My aim for this morning’s excursion was to just about break even. Breaking the bank would come on my afternoon return trip. I was already down three hundred dollars, plus the cost of breakfast. I didn’t want to win too fast, so after I converted my chips for roulette I played the first dozen spins on the up and up. I was the bored player in the corner. Not the excited individual every time he won, or the devastated dentist over at that other table who was clearly not looking forward to explaining to his wife where their retirement money just went. I took my losses, and my wins. I played inside numbers, and a few errant reds and blacks. I was losing, of course. House odds on a double zero wheel like this were just slightly above the payout amount; the casino edge. They paid out as if the single zero and double zero weren’t there, skewing the odds ever so slightly in their favor. The two percent different in probability was where they made their money. I knew the odds were in their favor; everyone who entered a casino did.