Blue waters and green and the Far East today . single number; if you win, you getfour to one. You can play a combination of any twonumbers, and if one of them wins you get two to one-You see the odds are exactly even. The bank getseight per cent out of every bet; that is all, but it isenough. That steady drain of eight per cent in thelong run gets it all. It is like the kitty at poker,which will in time absorb all the chips. Each player has before him a tablet and pencil, onwhich he records the fall of the numbers, and eachapparently tries to play a system of his own. Youhand your money to the
Blue waters and green and the Far East today . single number; if you win, you getfour to one. You can play a combination of any twonumbers, and if one of them wins you get two to one-You see the odds are exactly even. The bank getseight per cent out of every bet; that is all, but it isenough. That steady drain of eight per cent in thelong run gets it all. It is like the kitty at poker,which will in time absorb all the chips. Each player has before him a tablet and pencil, onwhich he records the fall of the numbers, and eachapparently tries to play a system of his own. Youhand your money to the boy, one dollar on the twoand four. He throws it into a basket hung from astring, and with a dexterous flirt drops it before thecashier and sing-songs in Chinese your croupier, apparently without looking at it, throwsit to the cashier and drops brass counters on the num-bers. When the bets are numerous, he spreads outlittle short slips of ivory, with your bet on the propernumbers. Sometimes the brass counters cover a space [162]. MACAO. two feet square. There are twenty or thirty bets be-fore him, but he never makes a mistake. There isnever a dispute. His big fat fingers seem to have anintelligence of their own. He picks up a stack ofbrass counters, running his finger down the stack with-out counting, and sets the exact number the bets are made. The dealer picks up ahandful of brass discs, each with a hole in it, andthrows them on the table, fifty or sixty, covers themfor a moment with a brass cup, and then with a pointedstick begins to draw them out, four at a time. Heseparates four from the pile, with a swift certainmovement spreads them so that everyone can seethat he has drawn out just four, no more or he draws out four, until only four or less areleft in the pile and the number left represents the win-ning number. If four remain, four wins. If youhave bet on the four you get four times your bet,less eight per cent; if you have bet on th
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