Gambling in Mecha Roulette

“Let’s see what we got here.” Rollnaldo’s digital avatar moved across my terminal. Stopping at the bottom of the roulette layout, he pointed to the color bet section. “I want you to start by putting a minimum bet on red.”

“On it.” I responded, as I swiped across the screen, placing one hundred dollars worth of digital chips on red. On the same screen, it also displayed the bet the Kasino King had put down.

“That’s pretty ballsy of him to go all in on black for the first spin.” Rollnaldo remarked.

“Playing it safe I see.” The Kasino King spoke as his mech held the LCD sphere up. The giant roulette wheel which surrounded the city began to spin clockwise. Now displaying an image of a bowling ball, he pulled it back with the right arm of his mech and took a few steps forward before tossing it underhand at the rim of the wall. Hitting it at high speed, it began spinning around the edge of the wheel counterclockwise.

“What are you waiting for? Go after the ba-!” Rollnaldo was abruptly cut off when the Kasino King swung his mech's arm into the torso of mine, knocking Rollnaldo and I to the ground.

“Pip, I felt that!” Rollnaldo cursed in pain.

“We’re not piloting these mechs just to sit and watch a ball spin.” The Kasino King jetted off toward the spinning sphere.

“Hurry the pip up and go after him.” Rollnaldo urged me, his avatar now displaying some bruises on his face after that last hit.

Fumbling with the controller in my hands, I toggled around the joystick and pressed the left trigger. The booster on Mecha Rollnaldo’s back fired up and jolted us forward. As we sped toward the roulette ball, I tapped the right trigger and the arm of my mech transformed into a gatling gun. Holding the trigger down, I began to rapidly fire a flurry of regular sized dice out the barrel of the gun, pelting the sphere.

Just as I began to slow down the speed of the ball with my barrage, a burst of gold coins smacked the side of the sphere, halting its momentum.

“Nice try.” The Kasino King responded, as his mech pumped the colossal shotgun that it held in its hands.

A plinking sound rang out as the ball cleanly fell into the black seventeen slot. On my screen, my total balance decreased by one hundred dollars, while the Kasino King’s doubled to two thousand dollars.

“Shoot, that was bad.” I pounded my dashboard in frustration.

“Just relax. I guarantee he’s going to play it risky this entire time. Eventually we'll catch him.” Rollnaldo reassured me. “Well play it smart by using the Martingale method. Every time you lose, you’ll just keep doubling down on your last bet.”

I nodded, as I placed down two hundred dollars worth of chips on red this time. In turn, the Kasino King once again went all in on black. He tossed the sphere over to me, which was displaying a fireworks celebration in response to his win. “Your spin.”

Catching the LCD sphere, it flickered then displayed an image of a soccer ball around it. As I held the ball out in front of me, I tapped the left bump of my controller, which made Mecha Rollnaldo kick his right leg out and punt the ball with all his might. Once again, the sphere hit the rim of the wall and began to spin around it at high speed.

“Heads up!” The Kasino King attempted to take another swing at me before darting off. Luckily I managed to dodge it by ducking mecha Rollnaldo backward as if he was doing the limbo.

Rollando clicked his digital tongue. “Tch, if that pipper wants to play dirty, we can return the favor.”

“Let's see what other weapons this thing has.” Pursuing him, I tapped the side arrows on the controller's d-pad and began cycling through the mech’s weapons. From the compartment on my mech’s back, I pulled out a dice bola, which was essentially a set of three fuzzy dice tied together with a chain. Twirling it around with my hand, I whipped it toward his back, which was faced toward me.

“That's not going to work.” The Kasino King proclaimed as the slot reels on his mech’s chest began spinning. At the moment the Bola was about to reach him, the reels stopped on bar, bar, bar. A black rectangle shaped shield labeled, ‘Bar’ in plain white letters manifested on his mech’s left arm. Using the shield, he deflected the bola toward the ball. The sphere came to a complete stop as the fuzzy dice and chain wrapped around it. Immediately falling into a slot, it landed on… black ten.

Rollnaldo’s avatar emoted angrily. “Darn it, that pipper did it again!” He let out a huff. “Double down again.”

“We gotta hit red eventually.” Trying to remain optimistic, I swiped around on my terminal and placed four hundred dollars worth of chips on red.

Placing his bet, the Kasino King went all in for the third time on black. “Looks like it's my spin again.” Grabbing the sphere, which now looked like a disco ball, he threw it two handed over his head. For the third time, it ripped around the rim of the wall.

“Beat him to it this ti-!” As Rollnaldo spoke, the Kasino King threw the heel of his mech back, catching Mecha Rollnaldo in the crotch before he blasted off toward the ball. Tears streamed down Rollnaldo’s avatar's face. “For being my father-in-law that guy’s a total pip head!”

“Let's try this out.” Toggling to a new weapon, my mech's arm is transformed into a crossbow, or as I liked to call it, a ‘crapsbow’. Using my right arm, I pulled a dice tipped arrow with a rope attached to it from an opening on Mecha Rollnaldo’s hip and loaded it into the bow. Launching the crapsbow bolt at the Kasino King’s mecha slotomaton, it stuck into the back of its leg. With the rope attached to the arrow, our mechs were now tethered together.

Rollnaldo’s avatar gave a satisfied nod. “Good, now subdue this pipper and knock that ball into a red number.”

To my surprise, the Kasino King suddenly froze, hovering above the giant wheel. “...” He remained silent.

With no time to act with caution, I seized the opportunity and flew around him in circles, wrapping my rope around his mech, restraining it.

“Now hurry and get that ball!” Rollando urgently shouted.

Shooting another bolt directly into the wall of the stadium, I created a tripline with the rope that was attached to it. “Here it comes.”

Ripping around toward us, the sphere, which was currently showing an animated fireball on its LCD surface, came slamming into my tripline.

“Nice jo-.” Rollnaldo spoke too soon. As the ball hit the rope, it unexpectedly rubberbanded from its tension, slinging up into air. “Quick, stop it!” He yelled out, so loud I thought his voice was going to blow out the mech’s speaker system.

Launching my mech up into the air, I swatted the sphere as if I was spiking a volley ball. At the trajectory I hit it, it plummeted directly toward a red slot.

“We did it-.”

I was suddenly interrupted by the Kasino King, who suddenly spoke up. “I wouldn’t celebrate so soon.” As he said that, the ball bounced out of red seven and landed in black twenty, which was right beside it.

“What the-!” Rollnaldo and I exclaimed simultaneously.

The Kasino King let out a yawn. “I already told you that I never lose. My luck is so powerful that even when I do nothing, I win.” The slot reels of his mech’s chest spun, landing on seven, seven, seven. The rope that was restraining him suddenly burst into shreds as he held a seven shaped scythe in his hand. “This is getting boring. Let’s up my risk.” Like an adrenaline junkie, he went all in this time on green zero.

A nervous bead of sweat dripped down my forehead, as I looked down at my terminal. “I only have three hundred dollars worth of chips left. It's impossible for us to double down again.”

“So this guy has perfect luck…” Rollnaldo muttered to himself as he thought.

“M-maybe I can use my gambling sorcery to pull something off.” I frantically stuttered. At the rate things were going, I was going to end up getting executed.

“No, whatever you do, don’t activate that. I have an idea” A lightbulb emoted over his avatar’s head. “I want you to put everything you have left, except for a single chip on green zero.”

I raised my eyebrow. “But that’s the same space he bet on.”

“Exactly.” Rollnaldo gave me a confident grin. “He said you're the unluckiest person in the universe. Let's see what’s more powerful, his fortune or your misfortune.”

I nervously swallowed. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, this is the only way.” He reassured me.

Putting every ounce of faith I had into Rollnaldo, I bet two hundred and ninety-nine dollars worth of chips on green zero.

“Interesting… I see what you're doing.” The Kasino King stood before me with his mech. “I have to admit, as a hardcore gambler, I’m intrigued with your strategy.” Tossing the sphere to me, he continued. “How’s about for this next spin, we leave the results up to pure luck?”

“Fine by me.” I took a deep breath as I held the sphere, which was currently displaying a blank white color, making it look like a plain roulette ball. This was it. Either my bad luck was going to be strong enough to beat his good luck or I was going to be utterly defeated.

“You got this, Lucky.” Rollnaldo gave me some final words of confidence.

Squeezing the right trigger of my controller, Mecha Rollnaldo tossed the ball, spinning it counter clockwise around the wall that was spinning in the opposite direction. As the ball glided around once again, the Kasino King and I stood motionless, neither of us interfering. Every moment that passed, the ball fell closer and closer toward the center of the giant wheel.

“Come on…” My hands shook from both nerves and anticipation.

After one final rotation, the ball hit a raised diamond shaped segment of the wheel, which caused it to bounce. Popping in and out of a number of slots, both the momentum of the ball and the wheel began to slow… the ball bounced into black thirty-five, then red fourteen, next black two… Finally, green zero came around and the ball bounced into the slot…

Gritting my teeth, I never hoped so hard to lose. Both the Kasino King, Rollnaldo, and I stared at the sphere with both fear and excitement, as it gave one final bounce…Just as I thought it was going to rest on green zero, it teetered back and forth on the lip, until finally fell onto… black twenty-eight.

With my mouth gaping open with surprise, I had managed to secure my victory with only a balance of one dollar left. My misfortune was so powerful, that I bested the luckiest man in the universe with it!