Serik Jumanov - Rise of London Gambler. Second edition

“Okay, Steve seems to be sleeping already,” said Mike, looking through the window. “So, what time do we meet in the morning”?

There was a game with kick-off scheduled at 10am, as usually on each Saturday, so they had to meet and take a bus.

“Oh, yeah, nearly forgot. Darren said he’ll pick us up at 9:00am at Tooting Station. So let’s meet at 8:45am at my flat.”

“OK.”

“See later, man.”

“See later.”

John felt great – now he didn’t have to worry about money until the end of his training course. Also, now he could place bigger stakes to win more. “My road to million,” murmured he. “Then I could forget about the day job, and run my own business. Maybe, open another bookie?”

Through the window, he saw Emil cleaning the fast-food shop with his workmate. The guy waved his hand to John, and so did John. “OK, one more cigarette,” decided John and stopped by the shop.

“Oh, another Friday evening show-off,” thought John, looking at walking young girls, who were sexually dressed and made up. Two pretty Asian girls were passing him by.

“Good evening, ladies!” he said, trying to pick them up, but they ignored him.

“Yeah, nice. Very nice.” Emil was smiling and showing gestures to John so to stop the girls. His workmate was smiling too.

Emil went out of the shop and started pulling steel shutters down. “Did you see these two sisters?” asked Emil. “I know them. They often come to our shop. I want to invite them.”

“Oh, they are very nice, tut-tut,” said Emil’s workmate with a strong Pakistani accent, shaking his head and smiling.

“It seems like they are already invited, mate. Try it tomorrow or next weekend,” replied John.

“Are you hungry? I took chicken fries,” said Emil. John wasn’t, but the fries flavor was too attractive.

“OK, bye, guys!” said Emil’s workmate.

“Oh, bye, man!”

John and Emil went upstairs to their room. Tea was hot enough still. They sat on the floor again.

“I am very happy for you, brother,” said Emil. “You are a great man.”

“Thank you, Emil! Another ‘slumdog millionaire’, eh?” laughed John.

Someone opened the door and entered the room. It was Karim. He asked Emil something in Urdu and they started talking. Karim laughed.

“You have no girlfriend?” asked he, looking at John now. “Is he your girlfriend?” he pointed at Emil and laughing.

“No, I have no girlfriend, why?” replied John. “How can Emil be my girlfriend?” asked he, but Karim went out.

“This guy has very strange sense of humor,” said John. “When I was younger, I used to beat such guys senseless.”

“It’s OK, brother, don’t worry. I will punish him.” Emil looked upset.

“What you were talking about?” asked John.

“Oh, nothing,” replied Emil. “You know, he is a bad guy. This girl sleeps with men for money. He is her manager.”

“Really?! He is a fucking pimp?” laughed John. “How much does he make then?”

“He said £30 an hour. He asked if we wanna try her.”

“£30? And what did you say?”

“No, I don’t want such things. It’s not good.”

“OK, man, just relax. Look, I don’t mind fucking her brains out, man. Are they in the kitchen?”

“Oh, brother… Look, if you want I can talk to him.”

“Yeah, why not? Sorry, where will you stay when we…”

“I can Skype at the kitchen, bro, no problem. If you want – then no problem.”

“Okay, man. Sorry for it, okay?”

“It’s okay.”

Emil went out of the room with his mobile phone and earphones in hands.

John lay on the bed. “Maybe, I should buy some beer?” thought he, but at this moment Jenny, with only a few clothes on, entered the room with a bottle of beer in her hand.

“Hi, honey!” smiled she, and suddenly John felt he is almost ready to rape her. “So, we wanna have fun, ah?” said she and sat on the bed.

“Sure, why not?”

“You got condoms? A real man always has condoms,” laughed Jenny.

John had no condoms but he didn’t want to look like a not “real man” now. So he said:

“I have no condoms. I prefer having sex with a woman, not a condom.”

Jenny laughed.

“Okay, I will take a quick shower, sweetie. Come on, go with me!”

John took soap and towel. They went out the room and saw Karim sitting in the kitchen. He grinned with satisfaction right at the moment he had seen them.

John showed him “OK” gesture and pushed Jenny towards the bathroom.

They have had a shower together, and Jenny kneeled down in front of John.

“Do you want it right here or should we go to your room?” asked she. The look of her eyes was gorgeous.

“Somebody might come here to have a shower. We better go to my room,” replied John.

This time when Karim saw them, he started whistling the “Come on, ladies! One-pound fish” tune. John didn’t turn back to see him.

“Oh, boy, you seem too horny… Come on, lie down. Did you lock the door?” She locked the door, turned the light off and closed the curtains.

Lying on the bed, he saw her coming naked. “Oh boy… your dick is so hard already” said she, holding his cock. John closed eyes and relaxed.

Jenny kissed and licked his belly, going lower and lower. Then she started her “sex magic”.

“Sweet surrender…” remembered John and then he cleared his mind from all thoughts he was overloaded with the last couple of months.

During December, John tested his theory of fixed matches. Nights and days were spent in analyzing match results, league tables, history of matches, and so on.

“Well, currently I have few ideas,” was he saying to Emil as it helped him to put his thoughts in order. “The first one is friendly games. Usually, they are conducted to test the team and new players, so results of underdog teams are higher than expected. Depending on odds, I select an event to bet on – underdog team is not to lose, or win with goal handicap. Odds have to be really attractive – either higher than 2, or pretty likely to win”.

“The second idea is,” continued he, “to find teams in some tournament, like a regular championship, which have lost motivation to play – for example, they have already avoided relegation or lost chances to promotion. There are many tournaments around the world, so you can often find one where some teams meet the criteria. You can make the same type of bets I just mentioned or even more – the half time/fulltime results. These odds can be really high, from 17 to 81 or so. Assuming that the match is going to be fixed, it will be fixed for higher profit because if you fix the match, you’re going to make money as much as possible, right? Usually, it is when one team leads the score after halftime, and then another team wins the match finally, i.e. leads the score after full-time. Am I clear?”

Emil nodded his head.

“Oh yeah, cup games are also good to bet on in the case of halftime/fulltime results. I think it is due to the nature of the tournament. It is a playoff, only one match played usually, there is lots of excitement, and thus the team tactics sucks. I mean, losing teams have to go all-in, and sometimes it works for them.”

“Hm…”

“Then you collect all your single bets and make a few-fold bet. For example, today I collected 14 bets and made 2-fold bets on all combinations of them. If only one pair of bets wins, I will increase my stake up to 10 times. If I also make 3-fold or even 5-fold bet, it can make me a millionaire just like that.” Saying it, John snapped his fingers. “So I hope, someday I will, sooner or later. It’s just matter of time and luck.”