My friend and I end up at the casino most weekends. I don’t gamble, but it’s the only venue serving alcohol after six am. When my friend’s really drunk he’ll dabble a little. Every now and then he’ll spend ludicrous amounts of money on chips. He just sits at the end of a high-rolling card table; he never actually makes a bet. After a quarter of an hour or so he’ll cash in the chips and return to the bar. One night we were watching roulette alongside a group of attractive girls; they were all dressed up and clearly out of our league. My friend put a thousand dollars on black so he’d look like a big-shot. When they weren’t looking he snuck another grand on red to hedge the bet. It wasn’t until the little ball bounced its way into the green square that he realised the losing possibility – zero would result in zero. I bought his drinks for the remainder of the night.