Loaded Dice Read Free Page B

well if they succeeded.”
    “And Deadlock was born,” Shelly said.
    “That’s right.” Valentine picked up the equipment from the table. “In the beginning, the students had some problems, mainly because they didn’t understand how blackjack was played. But eventually they caught on. Here’s how Deadlock works.
    “The keypad is strapped to my thigh. With my right fingers, I input the values of the first hundred and twenty cards played through the fabric of my pants. Because my right hand is beneath the table, the security cameras won’t see this. Neither will anyone else at the table.
    “Deadlock takes this known sequence of cards, plays out all possible drawing sequences, then outputs the strategy that wins the most money.”
    “How many sequences are we talking about?” Shelly asked.
    “Millions.”
    “How quickly?”
    “Ten seconds at most. Deadlock also adjusts for player mistakes, and legitimate players entering the game, all on the fly.” He picked up Deadlock and pointed at the red light on the keypad. Pressing the 1, he made the light come on. “This means Deadlock is ready to pass the information on to me.” He pointed at his right ear. “I’m wearing an intracanal earpiece. In a few seconds, Deadlock will tell me how to play the first round.”
    “It will
tell
you?” Rags said incredulously.
    “That’s right. Deadlock speaks with an automated voice. The instructions are always crystal clear.”
    “Wait a minute,” Shelly said, unable to hide his anger. “These cards were shuffled. They were in a
random
order.”
    Valentine shook his head. “Afraid not.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He glanced at Sal. “I had some help. That was one thing the Japanese whiz kids couldn’t solve. The scam needs two people.”
    It took a long moment before the words sunk in. Then Shelly erupted. With venom in his eye, he stared across the blackjack table at Sal. “You tricked us!”
    Sal was a classy guy and held his ground. “Mister Newman told me I was to do whatever Mister Valentine wanted. Mister Valentine asked me to help him demonstrate the scam. So I helped him.”
    “Sal didn’t shuffle the first one hundred and twenty cards,” Valentine explained. “He only pretended to, while I was distracting you. He shuffled the
rest
of the cards, which was what you saw, and remembered. When I cut the cards, I brought the unshuffled cards to the top.”
    “That won’t work in a casino,” Shelly said.
    “Of course it will,” Valentine replied.
    “Now
this
I’ve got to see,” Rags Richardson said.
             
    “It’s called putting the eye to sleep,” Valentine explained. “The average surveillance technician in a casino watches forty different video monitors. He tends to focus on things that attract his eye. Like a guy betting heavy. Or a pretty woman. Things that most casinos are filled with. Especially at night.
    “The cheater knows this. So he plays like a dummy for a few hours, splashes money around. He’s not seen as a threat, so the technician stops watching him. That’s when the scam happens.”
    “What if the tapes were watched later on?” Shelly said, still not believing him. “Wouldn’t they see that the cards weren’t shuffled?”
    Valentine looked at Sal. “Sal, would you please demonstrate the zero shuffle?”
    Sal slid a deck across the felt, broke it in two, and prepared to shuffle the cards together. Only he didn’t interweave the cards. He simply ran his thumbs up the sides of the decks, while leaving one half atop the other. Then he squared them.
    “Looks stupid, doesn’t it?” Valentine said. “The only eye it will fool is the one in the ceiling. To the camera, this shuffle looks legitimate.”
    Shelly climbed up on a stool and had Sal do the shuffle again. Chance and Rags got on their stools as well.
    “That does look good,” Rags admitted.
    “Radical,” Chance added.
    Valentine had Sal do the zero shuffle again. From above, it looked perfect, and