The woman's lips were always curved into a harmless, gentle smile as she spoke in a sweet voice, "Come and see, come and see!"
"To all the bosses traveling from south to north, if you're bored waiting for your bus, why not try your luck with a guess of odd or even on melon seeds!"
"The minimum bet for a round is ten yuan. If you guess the odd or even correctly, I'll pay you immediately, no matter how much you bet!"
"Ten yuan won't get you ripped off, nor will it be a waste. If you spend it on lottery tickets, it's like throwing it into the water!"
"Why not come here and play a round of odd or even? If you win, you'll get half of your short-distance bus fare back!"
As she spoke, the woman opened a bag of Chacha sunflower seeds and took out a small portion, pouring them onto a tray in front of her.
Even though the woman said it only cost ten yuan to play a round of odd or even.
If you really kept betting ten yuan at a time, it wouldn't be a fifty-fifty chance of winning or losing, but a sure way to lose more than half.
You'd lose sixty to seventy yuan out of a hundred, and keeping thirty to forty would be considered generous.
To win money, you had to book the table and bet heavily.
And all those who booked the table and bet heavily, and won, were her arranged decoys.
Of course, for a setup like this, the number of decoys didn't need to be too large, four to five people would suffice.
Before any real gamblers were drawn into the game out of curiosity, these decoys just needed to wait nearby, waiting for the crowd of onlookers to gather, and then seize the opportunity.
Under normal circumstances, as long as a real gambler entered the game and lost money, the decoys would, according to the instructions of the organizer, start betting in batches.
To stimulate the gambling psychology of the onlookers, the decoys always bet by booking the table.
Even when acting as casual gamblers, they would bet tens, hundreds, or even thousands.
The specific amount depended on the identity and appearance the organizer assigned them.
Around 2008, in most regions outside of major metropolitan cities, the monthly salary for ordinary workers was only one to two thousand yuan. Many people were still falling for this fifty-fifty gambling game.
If the timing was right and the crowd was large, it was entirely possible to make over a thousand yuan in half a day.
Even breaking ten thousand was not entirely impossible.
...
As the saying goes: "A man and a woman working together makes the job easier."
With the beautiful woman's nine parts charm and one part enthusiastic shouting, the crowd...
In a short while, many people in the crowd began to take money out of their pockets and try their luck at the 50%, 50% odds.
In the short time I stopped to observe, I roughly calculated that the woman's stall had already taken in three to four hundred yuan.
About ten people had placed bets.
For this kind of setup, more people meant a higher proportion of real gamblers, making it the easiest to make money.
The reason was simple.
There were only two betting options on the table, odd and even. The beautiful woman just needed to control the odds based on the betting ratio.
That is, kill the majority and pay the minority, eat the big and supplement the small.
Of course, there were drawbacks to doing this all the time.
For example, an outsider like me, who only watched and didn't play, could clearly see that the beautiful woman was controlling the odd and even based on the betting ratio on the table.
At this point, the first wave of excitement arrived.
A middle-aged man dressed as a boss, carrying a bag and wearing a Mont Saint-Michel shirt, pushed his way through the crowd to the table and announced he wanted to book the table.
Booking the table meant playing one-on-one against the dealer, excluding casual players.
For these street-level games, the booking fee was usually double the amount of money on the table.
However, this middle-aged man, dressed as a boss, came forward and booked the table with ten bright red bills.
Seeing this, the beautiful woman's eyes lit up with joy.
With a happy expression, she collected the money and began to clear the table, preparing for a one-on-one showdown with the middle-aged man.
At this point, I'm sure some people would think that the beautiful woman would mercilessly take the thousand yuan bet.
If anyone thought that, then... they would be greatly mistaken!
This was her acting as the organizer, arranging for a decoy to hype up the atmosphere.
As the old saying goes, wealth moves people's hearts!
A thousand yuan in real money thrown onto the gambling table was meant to stimulate potential gamblers.
I didn't even need to see the outcome of this round; I could have guessed with my eyes closed that the middle-aged man had won.
As expected...
"Holy crap! This boss is awesome, he guessed it right in one go!"
"Damn it! If I had known earlier when there weren't so many people, I would have booked the table directly with a hundred yuan. I bet ten yuan at a time, and I only won three or four hands!"
"Is it real? Could this person be a decoy?"
Hearing this, the beautiful woman immediately rolled her eyes and replied with a cold smile, "Heh."
"Brother, you can eat anything, but you can't just say anything!"
"This is a small business of mine, and the game is these small sunflower seeds. Every time before a new round starts, I don't even know how many I've poured in myself, so how could I find decoys to cooperate with me?"
"Besides, didn't you see that boss didn't say a word and just took the money to buy a ticket at the station!"
"People like this are truly ruthless and taciturn, quietly making a fortune!"
Hearing this, everyone looked in the direction she indicated.
Indeed, the boss who had guessed the odd or even in one go was, just as the beautiful woman said, taking the money and heading to the ticket window outside the station to buy a ticket.
Little did they know, this was also a trick within a trick.
As long as it wasn't a special offer ticket or a ticket for the same day, it could still be refunded after purchase.
After the first wave of excitement ended, the beautiful woman could directly launch a small harvesting.
Specifically targeting those who had a bit of money in their pockets and were itching to try.
Seeing that the person who had questioned her earlier had fallen silent, the beautiful woman immediately raised her head and said to the crowd, "Don't just assume that things that you dare not try but others succeed at are scams."
"As I said earlier, it's a matter of ten yuan per round. Whether you bet more or less, odd or even, it's all up to personal will!"
"If you can't win money, you say it's a scam. May I ask... what can I do by scamming you out of ten or eight yuan?"
"The thousand or so yuan I accumulated earlier was all won by that boss to buy train tickets. Did I chase after him to ask for a refund?"
Her words flowed like water, her mouth glistening with saliva!
As soon as the beautiful woman finished speaking, another young man in the crowd stepped forward and, before anyone else placed a bet, directly took out two hundred yuan to book the table.
In the first round of booking the table, the young man lost.
In the second round, he took out another four hundred yuan and continued to book the table.
As a result, the young man won.
The young man, who had won back his principal and made an additional two hundred, still seemed a bit unwilling. He took out his profit of two hundred and continued to book the table, betting on odd or even.
Unfortunately, he bet incorrectly in the third round.
After breaking even, the young man shook his head with a hint of regret and left the crowd.
The onlookers next to him immediately sighed, lamenting that the young man didn't know when to stop and shouldn't have gambled a third time.
Little did they know, the young man was the second decoy.
What he presented to them was the most popular betting method in online gambling in later years, which is doubling down, or escalating bets.
This betting method, while seemingly a heaven or hell choice, was actually a path of knives and fire, accompanied by a deep abyss of wailing!
The beautiful woman waited patiently, waiting for a real gambler to book the table.
At this point, if a real gambler fell for it, the final outcome would be only one.
Losing everything!
Thinking of this, and seeing that several gamblers around were showing signs of interest, I immediately stepped out from the crowd...