On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 16:54:09 +0000 Steve Rogerson steve.rogerson@mcr1.poptel.org.uk writes:
Just been watching Gambit. The Big Wheel is basically roulette. Vila is betting on single numbers. The odds at roulette for single numbers are about 30 to 1. Vila at one point has 0.5 million credits, then four million credits and finally five million credits. This doesn't work unless he's gambling only part of his winnings each time. The only reason he would do that would be if Orac could sometimes get it wrong. Yet we know he has six straight wins at least. All this doens't add up.
If I had to make a theory, Orac understood Avon's instructions to be how to _successfully_ pull off the scam. This meant not just winning but winning and one of them getting out alive with the money (I'd say all of them, but then Avon's letting Vila play speed chess would be partly based on Avon believing this fit in with Orac's calculations, greatly reducing the chance to discuss Avon's moral failings in risking Vila's life).
Anyhow, Orac might have figured better survival odds for them all with a less there's-no-way-they-can-be-doing-that-something's-rigged strategy. So, Vila is instructed to hold some back, make mixed bets, or make bets with less dramatic odds (so much for red to win or possibly some bet variations that haven't been invented yet in our time). After all, if they'd been more suspicious, Vila might have just been jumped in a dark alley instead.
Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.