Meet Allure Author Susan DiPlacido and her story… 24/7.

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It’s not hard to keep the count now.

Frankly, it makes the game more fun. Every other game I play I expect to lose in the long run, which makes winning fun. It’s that jolt, that rush. Walking away from a slot machine or dice table or baccarat room with extra money in my pocket is just absolutely invigorating. I feel lucky.

But walking away from a blackjack table with extra money in my pocket? There’s the same rush, invigoration. But I don’t just feel lucky. I feel smart.

Even better, I feel bad. Naughty. Kid-in-a-candy-store, fist-in-the-cookie-jar, hand-in-the-casino’s-pockets naughty.

Then add in the whole sport of not getting caught. Sun Tzu said all warfare is based on deception. I’ve never had much heat put on me while counting. I’m careful, I don’t repeat my business too often. That’s why I’m coming here today instead of the Hard Rock. Plus, I don’t play big money so I don’t really put a big hurt on the places. They don’t watch me as closely as they do high rollers.

I don’t play for a living, I play for more gambling money. I don’t think I ever could do it for a living. I’m not exactly faint of heart, but I think you’d have to be made of stone and have ice water running through your veins to endure the pressure of something like that.

Sure, I can turn the odds to my favor. But just because you have a winning-expectation game going doesn’t mean you’re going to win. No one wins all the time, and the fluctuations can be killer.

The casinos have all the money for a reason. It’s not just that the odds and numbers and statistics are in their favor; it’s the resources and manpower and experience they have.

They’re unbeatable.

Which is exactly why some people have to try.

I pick a $25-min table. The shoe is low, so I figure I’ll warm up and let it play out and start on a clean one. There’s two other people at the table, but the first base chair is open so I slide into it, throw down my money and card. I shouldn’t use a player card in this situation, but screw it—I’ve always wanted to stay at Bellagio, see how the ultra-rich live, and the only way I’ll ever be able to afford it is if I work up some sort of player rating.

I ease back, settle in and play a few hands. Even though it’s useless, I keep a count just to warm up.

Count: zero. The cards get thrown out. I get a pair of eights; count: zero. The guy next me, he’s got a four and a three; count: plus-two. Next to him are a jack and a six; count plus-two. Dealer shows six; count plus-three. I split my eights, get a ten and a six. Hard eighteen always stands, hard fourteen stands on a six showing—I’m done drawing, the count is plus-three.

Four-and-three draws, gets a nine; count is plus three. He should stand with that sixteen on six, but he hits, gets a jack, goes bust, count is plus-two. Jack-and-six stands. Dealer flips the hole card. It’s a seven. Count: plus-two. Dealer draws, pulls a queen and busts. Count: plus-one. I get paid.

Of course, it goes much quicker than that. It actually feels like: zero, split eights, count: plus-two, plus-three, stand and stand, plus-three, plus-two, plus-two, plus-one, cha-ching.

Easy, see?

I fiddle with the chips in front of me, absent-mindedly flipping a few between my fingers. Why not? Let’s really see if they do notice all this shit or not. Sun Tzu would have a shitfit about me acting this way right now, but since we aren’t actually talking about lives at stake here, I want to have some fun and test the waters.

The dealer looks at me once, but that’s all. No raised brow, no look over his shoulder to the pit boss. I pull a blackjack as the shoe runs out then lean back and light a smoke as he shuffles. I flip, backflip and smoke until he hands me the card to cut the decks. Cocky, I cut really low, don’t even leave a deck and a half to go uncounted.

It’s an interesting game. The guy next to me knows how to play. The guy next to him doesn’t. He hits a hard fourteen when the dealer’s up-card is a five. He pulls a ten, which busts him.

What he probably doesn’t notice is that the dealer turned up a hole card of a queen, so he took a hit and drew a six to give him twenty-one, which beat my eighteen. If the guy hadn’t taken that stupid hit, the dealer would have drawn that ten and busted and we all would have won.

I’ve seen some people at tables get pretty pissed over shit like that, but I don’t. Let him play the way he wants—that’s part of the chance I’m taking when I sit down. I started playing hundred-dollar hands, which was definitely way over my head, but it was the Bellagio. I’m playing on yesterday’s winnings anyhow, so I don’t care.

After a while, when I get a count slightly in my favor, I triple my bet. The weirdest hand I’ve ever played unfolds. I have the running count at plus-nine with the true count at plus-three, including three discarded decks. The triple bet is camouflaged by the previous wins, and it’s time to exploit vulnerability.

I get served an ace and a deuce. The guy next to me gets an eight and a nine. The other guy who hit his hard fourteen is gone. The dealer’s showing an up-card of seven. I have to hit—I’ve got either three or soft thirteen.

I tense because I’m expecting the ten to show up, but take the hit anyhow. I draw a three. Strategy says hit again, so I do it. I pull another ace. Soft seventeen has to take another hit, so I do. I don’t want to, but I do. I pull a five. Fucker. Fucker.

Now I’m standing with a hard twelve against a dealer seven. Strategy says I have to hit, but I know that ten card is just waiting to come up and bust me. I’ve got five cards in front of me already and I started off waiting for the tens to come up.

Sighing, shoulders tense, I tap my cards and take another hit, following the strategy for the cards. I get a freaking four. I snort out loud. I was expecting tens to come up, and instead I’m looking at six cards that total sixteen. The guy next to me isn’t showing a ten, and the dealer’s showing a seven. I can feel my heartbeat as I close my eyes and tap my cards again and wait for the ten to finally show up.

I get a three. A freaking three. I can’t believe it. I exhale with a huge grin and stay on my nineteen. The guy next to me stands with his hard seventeen. Then the dealer turns over his hole card. I expect the ten to finally show its face.

But it doesn’t.

He’s got an eight under that seven. I smirk. The running count is now plus-twelve with a true count of plus-four and not a single ten on the table this hand. This is absolutely outstanding for a player—it’s almost guaranteed he’s going to bust.

He draws.

He pulls a five. That gives him twenty to beat my seven-card nineteen.

“You are kidding me!” I say out loud and look up at him. I’m shocked for an instant. I had vaguely noticed another dealer come on but was so wrapped up in the game I didn’t really greet him or even look up at him. Because if I’d looked, I would have taken note.

It’s the dealer’s turn to smirk, and he does. Speaks fluidly.

“That was a good one, huh?” His gaze lingers on me longer than it should, and I try to match him. I checked out his face when I first looked up, seeing his high cheekbones, really dark short hair. But now he’s got me engrossed in his dark eyes.

I breathe and it sets me straight again. I blink and look down at the table, suddenly aware of how inappropriate that was. Even more rattled at what he was potentially thinking as he looked back at me.

“Are you always this lucky?” I ask him.

He cocks a brow and shakes his head.

“Don’t know, this is my first time.” Sweeping the cards off the felt and putting them in the discard deck, he glances over at me again.

“Get out. This is your first day dealing?” I ask. “And you’re at the Bellagio?”

“Nah, huh-uh. I mean, like, it’s my first day dealing this game. Twenty-one.” He pulls the cards out of the shoe and I notice that his hands do move more slowly and deliberately than most dealers.

“Well, you’re doing a good job. For them. Not helping me much.” I don’t want to sound like I’m whining, so I make sure to say it jokingly. “Let’s see if you have good luck if you’re playing this side of the table. This one’s for you.”

I have the count at plus-thirteen and check out my hand. Or rather, the hand I’m playing for him. He slides me an ace, finishes the table then comes back around and paints me with a jack.
Now, finally, the fucking ten shows up.

As he pays me, I slide the chips back to his side of the table. “That’s yours—I guess you are lucky.”

“You don’t gotta do that, I don’t deserve all that,” he says as he collects the discards. His hands seem to move a bit more rapidly this time. They’re nice hands, nails clipped short, long fingers.
“Yeah, I want to, it’s cool. You’re earning it.”

Shifting his weight, he nods his head once, taps his hand in front of me and points. Says, “Thank you. Really, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s see if we can get some luck for this side, too.”

“Yeah.” He winks at me. “You deserve some luck.”

“No one deserves luck,” I say. “But I’ll try and earn it anyhow.”

Lowering his head and smiling, he starts dealing and says, “All right, c’mon now, let’s go, good cards for my cutie on the end here.” As he slides the cards in front of me, his tongue settles onto the corner of his mouth. “Yo, how’s that, huh? You like those? Not bad, huh?”

Looking down, I see two face cards. “Yeah, I’ll take that. Thank you.” I sweep the table and do the math in my head.

The guy next to me takes a card then holds with an eighteen. The dealer flips his hole and he has seventeen.

“There you go,” he says as he pays us off. “Start of a hot streak for the players on this table.”
Licking his lips, he winks at me again.

I can feel someone standing behind me, and the dealer acknowledges him.

“Yo, what’s up, sir? Grab a seat, it’s about to get rolling here.” He points him to a place further down the table. I watch him as he changes the guy’s money. Dark hair, dark eyes, definitely Italian or Latino. He’s like chained energy. His tongue finds its way to the corner of his mouth again as he handles the money and counts the chips. He shifts his weight a few times, always has his body in a slight contrapposto. Most card dealers are like stone—they have only the most conservative actions and keep their bodies at rest. His one leg taps constantly. He’s in one spot, but he’s not standing still. Action in repose, that’s what he exudes.

When he starts dealing us again, I ask him, “You’re a dice dealer, aren’t you?”

Grinning, he nods. “Yeah, yeah, I am, man. Why? How’d you guess that?”

“You just seem like one, that’s all.”

“Yeah, why’s that, huh? Cause I suck at dealing these cards?”

I stand on my hand of hard nineteen, and he goes around the rest of the table.

“No, no, that’s not it. You’re doing really good.”

As I tell him that, he flips over his hole card, which is an eight. He had a five showing. He takes a card and gets a three, hesitates for a second then busts a grin.

“See that now? See? Soon as you say that I gotta count the spots to see how much I got.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” he says as he pulls another card for himself. It’s a six, he’s busted, but he blushes as he taps the card and adds it up. “Yo, that’s what happens with a dice dealer on a card table, can’t even add up the cards.”

“That’s just ’cause the dice only go up to twelve. You’ll get used to it.”

Sighing, he takes our cards away and gives us chips. “I hope so, man. I hope so. So how’d you know I was a dice dealer?”

“’Cause the best-looking guys always are,” I answer and drop my eyes down at the cards he’s dealing me. Peeking up, I can see him smiling. I check out his nametag: Miguel.

“You see that?” he says to the guy next to me. “See that? She’s tryin’ to distract me over there. She knows I’m new meat and she’s gonna mess with me now.” He deals me a nineteen and that guy a twenty.

“Looks like it’s working, too,” the guy answers him, and nods to me.

He pays us off and starts dealing a new hand. He nods again, shifts his weight then pins me in his gaze when he’s done. It must be those eyes of his, ’cause I swear he’s trying to communicate with me. More so, I swear it’s working.

Realizing I’m crazy, I look down and tap my hand to get another card, but he just stands and leans with his hands on the rail for a second. He goes, “I bet you play dice, too.”

“How would you know that?” I ask.

He hesitates a second then finishes dealing our hands, adding up his cards, paying us off.

“I know it ’cause not a lot o’ females play dice. It takes a certain kind, you know?” he says as he sweeps up the cards.

“Oh, Madone. And what kind is that?”

Dealing again, he looks at the guy next to me and tells him instead of me. “They all got three things. Three things, man. They’re cute, they’re smart. And they’re all cool.”

I look down at my hand of fifteen facing his king. I have to surrender.

I have no idea what the count is.

END EXCERPT

24/7
What it’s about:
Sexy and pulpy, this book is set in glittering Las Vegas.

Sparks fly when a sharp card counter falls for a charming casino dealer. But when the dealer’s past surfaces to haunt him, and threaten her, she’s forced to make a dangerous choice. In a city built on luck, it’ll take all her brains to figure out if she should gamble on her heart.

Now available as paperback and an ebook!

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