"That was a near miss," whispered a woman standing nearby.
The croupier said: "Fourteen, Red, Even, and Low." And he raked in Howley's two thousand dollars with a satisfied smile. He had seen runs of luck before.
Howley deliberately lost two more spins the same way. Nobody who was actually cheating would call too much attention to himself, and Howley wanted it to look as though he were trying to cover up the fact that he had a sure thing.
He took the gadget out of his pocket and deliberately set it to the green square marked 00. Then he put it back in his pocket and put two thousand dollars on the Double Zero.
There was more than suspicion in the croupier's eyes when he raked in all the bets on the table except Howley's. It definitely didn't look good to him. A man who had started out with a fifty-dollar bet had managed to run it up to one hundred seventy-four thousand two hundred dollars in six plays.
Howley looked as innocent as possible under the circumstances, and carefully dropped the dial on his gadget back a few notches. Then he bet another two thousand on High, an even money bet.
Naturally, he won.
He twisted the dial back a few more notches and won again on High.
Then he left it where it was and won by betting on Red.