9
The players hearten themselves by maintaining that they have an incontestable advantage over the bank. They begin to play, they “punt” when they like and as they like and they withdraw when they please, whereas the bank is compelled to play without stopping, to accept every stake and to meet every coup up to the limit of the maximum, which, as we know, is six thousand francs on the even chances. This advantage is a real one if the player, after winning a big sum, goes away and does not come back again. But the lucky gambler, even more infallibly than the one who has no luck, will return to the enchanted table and in so doing loses the only elective weapon that he had against his enemy. To choose your time for punting is but an illusory privilege, because everything, at any moment, is equally shifting and uncertain; and you never know beforehand when the precarious and deceptive law of equilibrium will reassert itself. After a long sequence of blacks, you wager on a fine series of reds, a certain run, you would say; but no sooner have you staked your money than the series gives up the ghost and remorseless black resumes its devastating course; or else you do the opposite: you bet on black and it is red that settles down for a run. At whatever moment you start punting, you are always fighting red against black, that is to say, one to one. Once more, the only real advantage is that you can go away when you like; but where is the gambler, whether losing or winning, who is able to go away and not come back?