Chapter 831: Casino Baccarat, Watching the Game
"Hmm? Brother Xiao, what did you say?"
Xin Yiran leaned in a little closer, not having heard what Xiao He said just now clearly.
"It's nothing. We should hurry and leave."
Xiao He stood up and said to the two, "This isn't a good place. Don't harbor the mindset of 'just playing without gambling' when participating in any games like this, and it's best to stay far away from here, because you never know what's waiting for you in the next moment."
"Okay, okay! At least we've seen what it's like now."
Xin Yiran nodded, and Liang Cheng didn't really want to continue staying here either, so he agreed as well.
Although the casino's internal privacy was very well-maintained and there were many familiar faces from the entertainment industry at the scene, he always felt in his heart that coming to places like this was unsafe.
Liang Cheng wasn't sure if it was just his own psychological effect.
If they could leave now, that would be for the best.
But just after walking a few steps, Liang Cheng remembered something: "Eh, right, where are the others?"
Reminded, Xin Yiran finally snapped out of her star-struck state and followed Liang Cheng, looking left and right: "Eh, that's strange. Weren't they all just here a moment ago?"
Because there were many people at the security check and each checkpoint required queuing, they had each chosen a nearby checkpoint to go through after storing their phones. Xin Yiran and Liang Cheng happened to finish their security checks one after the other, so they were the first two to gather together. Afterwards, they started looking for the others, and in the process, Xin Yiran was the first to spot Xiao He in the corner by the entrance.
As for the others who had queued separately from them to enter the security checkpoints, they had vanished without a trace.
"Seriously, they wouldn't have just gone inside to wander around, would they?" Xin Yiran was quite unhappy. "Why couldn't they have waited for us a bit longer?"
"A group of security personnel came by just now and dispersed the crowd in the central passageway. They might have just been dispersed to the other side and swallowed up by the crowd." Liang Cheng muttered while craning his neck to look around. "But why is the casino on the ship so popular? We've only been standing here for a little while, and so many more people have already come in one after another. It's really going to be hard to find them for a while now."
When they first entered the main entrance of this establishment, they thought there weren't many people inside. But after coming in, they discovered that the entrances here led in all directions, and the location of their final security checkpoint was truly packed with people.
"This is also quite normal. For some people, this is a pastime, a form of entertainment. The small amount of money squandered to buy a night of revelry is a not-bad choice."
Xiao He said casually, raising his hand to help block the crowd on this side, then led the two around to the other side to start looking for the others.
A few minutes later, they successfully found the three people who had gotten lost.
What made them heave a sigh of relief was that the three who had gotten lost were completely safe. They hadn't thought about exchanging chips to play a few rounds either; instead, they were crowded around a gambling table with other passersby, watching the game there.
"Hey! What are you all doing?" Xin Yiran was the first to pat Wu Chuyi, with whom she had a decent relationship now.
Wu Chuyi turned his head, saw Xin Yiran and Liang Cheng, and breathed a sigh of relief. He then looked at Xiao He and immediately nodded in greeting: "You've all come over. We just heard that the stakes here are very high, so we came over to join in the excitement."
It turned out that after they were separated by security earlier, they had followed the flow of people in another direction.
It happened that they heard gamblers over there saying someone was preparing to place a huge bet, almost wagering their entire net worth. The scene was bound to be very exciting.
— This was like a plot from a movie; how could one not be curious?
Wu Chuyi and the other two guests were intrigued, so they couldn't help but follow the people here to watch the gambling game first.
And so, watching and watching, they momentarily forgot to look for their two lost companions.
Instead, they waited for Xiao He and the others to find them.
"Eh? A gambling game? How big? Let me see, let me see. Brother Xiao, wait a second, I'll just take a look!"
Hearing Wu Chuyi's explanation, Xin Yiran became somewhat curious too, and Liang Cheng couldn't help but look over as well.
At this moment, there were already a great number of people surrounding them. Not only were Xin Yiran and the others curious, but other guests who had just arrived here were also curious about the situation.
Thus, unconsciously, a large circle of people had already formed around them.
Xiao He crossed his arms, feeling somewhat helpless, but since he really couldn't rest easy with this group, he could only walk over and help Xin Yiran and the others squeeze into a slightly better viewing position.
This group was playing Baccarat, which was the most popular way to play in the casino currently. Such gambling tables were also the most common in the lower-level casino here: a large rectangular table covered with dark green velvet, with the edges secured by gilded decorations, and many different grids drawn on top.
The players sat around it, while the dealer responsible for dealing the cards stood at the very center in front of the table, responsible for dealing cards to everyone.
The basic gameplay of Baccarat is actually very simple. It is divided into three betting areas. The two largest areas on the sides are "Banker" and "Player," while the smallest grid in the middle is for a "Tie." Gamblers place bets according to their own ideas, placing the chips in their hands into the different areas here. This is what people often call betting on the Banker, betting on the Player, or betting on a Tie.
At this time, the dealer deals two cards each to the "Banker" and the "Player," then calculates the corresponding points of each card according to the rules and adds them up. For the units digit, they take it directly; for the tens digit, they also directly take the unit digit, then see who is closer to 9 points.
In fact, one can tell from the rules that this gameplay doesn't rely on much skill; it's purely gambling on luck, without any special substance. Moreover, because the betting is extremely fast and the rules are very simple, it fits most newcomers who are just entering the casino. Therefore, this gameplay slowly swept through major casinos and became one of the most popular items in casinos.
However, beneath the secrecy of these popular games exploding in popularity, there also lies the casino's control over these gambling games.
Because if you scrutinize this kind of gameplay, you will discover that players never touch the cards from beginning to end. The cards dealt are almost entirely controlled by the dealer, so even if a player has some high-level cheating techniques, there is no way to bypass the dealer to manipulate the win or loss.
Thus, in a gambling game, what truly controls the win or loss is fundamentally not the luck of the various players, but the dealer responsible for dealing the cards.
A dealer with real means and brains can even completely control the thoughts and wins/losses of everyone in this gambling game, letting those who should "win" "win" and those who should lose, lose, ensuring the gambling game is completely under their control.
Therefore, gameplay like Baccarat later became a gray method used by many casinos for money laundering and transactions.
Especially with the development of technology, later on, even the step of dealing cards basically became machine-operated.
The dealer only needs to collect the cards and place them into the small card-dealing device in front of them. Then the machine shuffles the cards, and the dealer clicks to deal. The machine automatically spits cards toward the two sides, saving the dealer the action of shuffling and dealing cards personally. This also makes the card hand easier to control, and even eliminates the need for the dealer to possess the corresponding skills.
Thus, the speed of a game became faster, and the dealer didn't need much substance; they didn't even need to think about who won or lost. The machine would have pre-set corresponding programs to help calculate and control the cards. They only needed to manipulate the machine at the appropriate time.
Because of this, its controllability made it popular in casinos.
As for the gamblers... would gambling addicts think that much? They would only feel that they were unlucky.
Xiao He just stood on the side watching for a while, then shook his head helplessly: "The Player is going to lose."
Luck, that thing, is sometimes really just a probability secretly set for you by someone else—everything's outcome was destined long ago.