Unit 10 A Moral Learnt in France.
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The list of answers:
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1.
Tom: True, I'm gambling, I'll tell you a gambling story, if you like. Tina: Right. Tom: This really originated from a friend when I was a student at university. And this guy, I wasn't actually at University with him, he was at Oxford and he got this idea,
I didn't know why, that he was going to really take an interest in roulette and he had some theory that he could dream up an unbeatable system and he dreamed up this system which is really so simple that it was absolutely ludicrous because obviously
if it was true everybody else would have stumbled on it which was simply to double up on red or black indefinitely till it came up. Tina: He wasn't a mathematician, was he? Tom: He wasn't a mathematician, far from it, ...
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Tom: ...but, you know, he sort of convinced himself. He sent for all the printed records of the spins of all the leading continental casinos, apparently, these were printed. Tina: I see, he knew where to buy them all or something like that. Tom: Yes, he knew where to buy them and so, you see, he used these as a data for his system and he discovered that it was an unbeatable system.
So as he was prepared to go on doubling up for seven times and in order to double up for seven times from a minimum stake you need seventy-five pounds.
So he also wanted someone else to go along with him, you know, sort of to hold his hand on this occasion. So ...
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Tom: ... er his plan was to go to Le Touquet and try the system out. He took seventy-five pounds, well, I am very sceptical about gambling. I am really just don't, you know,
I don't believe in it. So I ... Tina: Sorry, presumably this is before it was possible to gamble in England at roulette tables. Tom: Yes, yes, there weren't any casinos in England then (а-ha) and I am very sceptical so I said, "Well, you know, I'd love to come along but I'm not going to put my money into this system at all."
So he said, "OK, that's fine." He is very generous actually, so he said, "That's fine, I'll provide the seventy-five pounds and if we win you can have one-third of the winnings and I'll take two-thirds as I put up the money." Fair enough. Tina: That's a good deal.
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Tom: So, he was terribly poor in those days and I didn't know where he got the seventy-five pounds from. And so we set off and we took the sort of air ferry, you know, over to somewhere near Le Tourquet I can't remember where,
and it was actually terribly amusing this, because on the plane there was the Marquis of Bath and his wife with their Rolls-Royce and there was lord and lady Manchester and there was me and my friend. Tina: And that is all? Tom: That was all. It was out of season. It was the first day as the casino opening for the season and so they were so eager to go, you see. (Yes)
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Tom: And so there were just six of us on the plane plus these very expensive cars. When we got off, of course, we didn't have cars at all and we were hitch-hiking we got through the customs faster than they did and we tried to sort of hitch a lift from these aristocratic people
but they didn't stop at all, and even we had been sitting with them on the plane they didn't stop. Anyway, we went on, we got a room and that evening we went into Le Tourquet, walked, I think.
And because you had to sort of wear respectable clothes which were a bit of a problem as well, so we had taken along some sort of old suites that we got into.
We went into the casino which was extremely empty, then, you know, a very sort of spacious and luxurious place, I don't know if you've ever been to any of them (Yes, I know.) and very very empty, you know. (Yes)
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Tom: and in fact there was hardly anybody there except the Marquis of Bath and his wife and lord and lady Manchester.
There was only one table open anyway they pretended that they had never seen us before. So we started operating the system and it was sort of, you know, we won a bit, we lost a bit and it went on for a long time -
we'd got there at about eight o'clock, I think. And then it started to build up a bit and we were really winning quite a lot and I think we had about two hundred pounds and though Tim originally had been so confident with his system we wanted to play all night we actually
agreed since we were winning though we would stop at twelve o'clock so we went on a bit longer and by about ten to twelve we had won three hundred and fifty pounds. Tina: Wow! Tom: Yeah.
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Tom: And er then we lost it all by twelve o'clock. Tina: In ten minutes? Tom: In ten minutes, we doubled ten times on red or black and it didn't come up, which was in theory impossible and it was obviously not really impossible and we just lost the whole lot. Tina: Did it convince him that his system didn't it work? Tom: Well, yes, it did really, it did, it convinced him of that and in fact what we did was we just kept about three quid to buy some drink to drown all sorrows (Yeah.) and then we walked back to the town where we were staying.
We went into a little wood on the way back and we took all his notebooks which he'd worked on for months and months working out his system and we just made a little bonfire in the wood and burnt them all.
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Tina: So this is quite a moral story. Tom: Well, it was really, I think, it absolutely cured him, you see. He felt that himself immediately afterwards, if he'd won, it would have actually been his undoing. Tina: Yes, quite he'd learned this lesson a hard way. Tom: Yes, exactly. Tina: Yeah.
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