“But don’t you have to be eighteen years or older to gamble?” I asked.
“Yes.” Ian said. “But nobody ever gets asked to show the management their I.D. books unless they’re obviously under eighteen. You’re a big guy for your age so you’ll easily pass for someone over eighteen. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” I said. “Count me in.”
When I told Cindy that I was going to the casino with Ian, Bruce and Vic I could see the worry in her eyes.
“How long will you be there?” she asked.
“Probably the whole night.” I said. “That’s why I can’t invite you to come with me.”
“Please be careful, Garth.” Cindy said. “Those places are set up to take people’s money. The odds are heavily stacked against the visitors. That’s why they are so plush. We always hear about the people who make money but we seldom here about the majority who lose money there.”
“Don’t worry.” I said. "I’ll be careful. Besides, Bruce, Ian and Vic will be with me and they’re very experienced. They won’t let me do anything stupid.”
I had been thinking about the sixty thousand Rand investment account and how I could get my hands on the money. Somehow I had to get the daily limit on my credit card changed, and the only way I could think of to do this was to forge a letter to the bank on a Child Welfare Department letterhead instructing the bank to increase the daily limit on my credit card.
I took the letter that Misses Phillips had given me advising me that the Department would be handling my affairs and placed a blank piece of white paper over the bottom part so that only the letterhead was visible. I then placed the document in my copier and printed it. The result was a perfect replica of the Department’s letterhead.
I composed a letter addressed to the bank manager instructing the bank to increase the daily limit on Master Garth Gilmore’s credit card from one hundred and fifty Rand to five thousand Rand, explaining that he was in the process of starting his own business and needed to purchase machinery and materials. I carefully typed the letter onto the blank letterhead and then spent an hour practicing the signature that was on the Department’s letterhead. Once I was satisfied that I could copy it exactly I signed the forged letter. It looked exactly like the original letter. I addressed an envelope to the manager of the bank, placed the forged letter inside, and sealed it. I went to the Post Office, purchased a postage stamp and dropped the letter into the post box.
For the next two days I waited anxiously. Would my letter be accepted by the bank or would I suddenly find Misses Phillips and the police at my front door? By the morning of the third day, when I hadn’t been visited by Misses Phillips and the police or heard from the bank, I went to the bank and spoke to one of the tellers.
“I’ve forgotten what the daily limit on my credit card is.” I said as I handed the card to the teller. “Can you please tell me what it is?”
The teller took the card, swiped it through her processor and studied the screen of her computer.
“The daily limit on your credit card is five thousand Rand.” she said as she handed my card back to me.
Trying hard not to show my excitement, I thanked the girl and left the bank. It had worked! The bank had accepted my forged letter! Now I had access to all the money that I would need to live like a king! And when I went to the casino on Friday night with Ian, Bruce and Vic I would have plenty of cash!
The glitz of the casino dazzled me. There was obvious a great deal of wealth here. Music blared, lights flashed and the banks of slot machines glowed with the promise of easy money. Pretty girls in short skirts and plunging necklines were everywhere; serving drinks and pampering the patrons. Plush carpets covered the floors. And Ian was right. Nobody took any notice of me and nobody queried my age or asked to see my I.D. even though I saw several uniformed security personnel mingling with the crowds.
“So, what are we going to play?” Ian asked. “”Let’s go to the roulette tables.”
“I don’t know how to play roulette, poker or any of the other games.” I said. “So I’m just going to play the slot machines.”
“Slot machines are so boring.” Vic said. “But if you don’t know how to play any of the other games then we’ll leave you to it. Let’s all meet at the reception desk at twelve o’clock. Then we can assess our financial positions and have something to eat. After that we can decide what we’re going to do for the rest of the night.”
Ian, Bruce and Vic hurried away. I went to the cashier’s booth and withdrew five hundred Rand from my credit card account. I was given the money in five-Rand coins in a large white plastic cup. I selected a slot machine and began feeding the coins into it. I used up more than half the coins before the machine made a jingling sound, lights flashed and I got just on half my money back. Suitably encouraged I continued to feed coins into the machine. Unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold and in an amazingly short time I had used up all my coins. I went back to the cashier’s booth and withdrew another five hundred Rand. I chose another machine and began feeding coins into it. Within an hour I had lost all my money again. Still convinced that my luck would change I withdrew another five hundred Rand. By the time I went to the reception desk to meet Ian, Bruce and Vic I’d lost just under five thousand Rand and had reached the daily limit that the bank had set on my credit card.
“How did you go with the machines?” Ian asked.
“I’ve lost just over a hundred Rand.” I lied, ashamed that I hadn’t won anything.
“Don’t feel bad. We’re also all down.” Ian said. “But I’m sure that our luck’s about to change. So let’s get something to eat.”
I could see that my friends had been drinking quite heavily. I had been too absorbed in playing the machines to even think of having a drink. We found a small takeaway and bought hamburgers. When it came to paying for the food my companions looked at me.
“Will you pay for the food, Garth?” Ian said. “We’re completely out of cash. Can you lend us some money? I promise I’ll pay you back. On Sunday I’m getting money from a guy who owes me ten grand.”
“I don’t think I’ve even got enough money for all three of the meals.” I said. “I’ve reached the limit on my credit card.”
We all scrounged through our pockets and just managed to find enough money to pay for the meals.
“I thought you’d inherited so much money?” Ian said.
“The bank put a limit on my credit card.” I said. “It doesn’t matter how much money I inherited, I can’t withdraw any more money from my credit card.”
“But you said you’d only lost about a hundred Rand.” Vic said. “How much is the limit on your card? A hundred Rand?”
I realised that I had trapped myself by lying about my losses.
“Okay, I lied.” I said. “I’ve actually lost five thousand Rand. That’s the limit on my card.”
“You lost five grand playing the slot machines!” Ian exclaimed. “That’s crazy! If you’d lent us some of that we would probably be rich right now!”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“So, how much did you guys lose?” I asked.
“We only had two hundred Rand between us to start with.” Ian said. “So, as none of us has any money we might as well go home.”
Suddenly Vic looked at me, his eyebrows raised.
“Garth.” he said. “That limit on your credit card. Is it a daily limit?”
I nodded.
“In that case,” Vic said, looking at his watch. “The five grand that you withdrew from your card was withdrawn yesterday. So you used up yesterday’s limit. It’s now just after twelve so there must now be a new five grand limit on your card. Go to the cashier and see if I’m right.”
I was reluctant to use any more of my money but the possibility of winning back my losses was too strong. I walked over to the booth.
“I want to withdraw a thousand Rand from this card.” I said to the girl. “But I’m not sure if my daily limit has been renewed. Can
you please check for me?”
The girl took the card and swiped it through her device. She typed something into the little machines and nodded.
“The card’s good for five thousand Rand.” she said. “Do you want the thousand Rand?”
“Yes.” I said.
I took the cup of coins back to where Ian, Bruce and Vic were standing.
“You were quite right, Vic.” I said “The limit has been reset for today.”
“Great!” Ian said. “So now you can lend us each a grand and I’ll pay you back on Sunday. I know our luck’s going to change so we’ll probably be able to give you your money back tonight. Besides, you don’t want to spoil our night. Do you?”
I hesitated, but when I saw my three companions glaring at me, I went to the cashier’s booth and withdrew three thousand Rand. I handed the money to Ian.
“Thanks mate.” he said. “We’ll see you later.”
As Ian, Bruce and Vic hurried away to the roulette tables I turned and headed back to the slot machines.
By two o’clock I’d reached the daily limit on my credit card again and had lost it all. I left the slot machines and went to the roulette tables. My friends were nowhere to be seen. I wandered around the huge gaming room and noticed a large posh open restaurant. I scrutinised the patrons and saw my friends sitting at one of the tables. I walked over to them. They were just finishing their meal. I noticed a large green bottle of champagne on the table and several empty glasses that had obviously contained Irish coffee. I pointed at the bottle.
“You guys must have done well.” I said. “Is that why you’re celebrating?”
“Actually we’ve lost all the money that we borrowed from you.” Ian said. “We only had enough left to get a decent meal. We looked for you but couldn’t find you.”
As I’d been in the slot machine area the whole evening I knew that Ian was lying. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well, I’m going home.” I said. “There’s no point in staying here any longer.”
“Okay, Garth.” Ian said. “I’ll pay you back on Monday. Just come to the snooker saloon.”
I walked out of the casino. I had lost ten thousand Rand and I knew that I would never get the three thousand Rand back from Ian. What a fool I’d been.
As I expected, when I went to the snooker saloon on the Monday to collect the three thousand Rand that I’d lent Ian, he wasn’t there. Nor were Bruce and Vic. I waited there for a few hours, whiling away the time playing pinball, but eventually I left empty-handed. What also worried me was that my guardian, Misses Phillips, would want to see my credit card bank statement at the end of the month and when she saw that I’d spent ten thousand Rand in one night gambling at the casino, I had no doubt that she would have the daily limit drastically reduced or even take away the card. I had to think of a way to change the statements.
Changing the monthly bank statements actually turned out to be quite easy. I placed a blank sheet of white paper over the lower part of the statement that contained all the transactions for that month and copied the original in colour. This gave me a perfect statement header. I then typed out all the transactions that had been on the original statement except for the transactions at the casino, changed the total balance, and printed them onto the blank bottom half of my fake statement. The two statements were identical except for the missing casino transactions on the fake statement. Unless Misses Phillips actually asked the bank to send her copies of my statements, she would be quite unaware of the true balance in my account. It seemed very unlikely that she would do this. The outstanding monthly balances were paid by an automatic debit transfer from my aunt’s other investment account of mine and my guardian never asked about it because she assumed that I never used it myself, and as long as I was very careful about the continuity of the credit card statements, I felt sure that I could keep up the deception until I turned eighteen in August the following year and no longer required a guardian.
I also kept the truth about by visit to the casino from Cindy, telling her that I had only made a small loss of thirty Rand.
“That’s not too bad.” she said. “I worry about you hanging out with Ian, Bruce and Vic. I don’t trust them. Garth, please promise me that you won’t lend them money. If you do, I’m sure that you’ll never see it again.”
“Don’t worry.” I said. “I won’t lend any of them a cent.”
The financial loss that I’d suffered at the casino worried me greatly and I realised that my impulsiveness had to be curbed. The ten thousand Rand that I’d lost was almost a sixth of the money I’d inherited. I also needed to try to recover the money that I’d lost but I doubted that I would achieve this at the casino where I had absolutely no influence over the system. The odds were stacked in the casino’s favour. That was why they were so wealthy.
I had told Cindy and Misses Phillips that I would like to start my own business but nothing that I thought of seemed likely to make me rich quickly. All the enterprises that I came up with would require years to establish and bring in an income that would satisfy me. On top of this, the effort, capital outlay and the risks involved turned me off. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, the thing that was really holding me back was my lack of self-confidence, something that had grown within me as a result of my father’s constant criticism of me and the disdain that he showed towards me. Not once in all the time before he took his and my mother’s lives did he ever praise anything that I did or encourage me to attempt to achieve something. My mother had been much the same, perhaps even worse, as she seldom said anything to me or defended me, especially in my father’s presence. Then one day, I discovered what I believed was an easy way to wealth.
South Africans are very keen followers of horse racing and regular race meetings are held all over the country. People flock to these meetings and the results of the races are published in the newspapers, television and the internet. One of the premier races that is avidly followed is the annual “Durban July”, a race for thoroughbred horses over a distance of 2200 metres and which is run in the port city of Durban. The race is part of the meeting held on the first Saturday of July and, as it was the middle of June, I decided to place a bet.
I had never before taken even the slightest interest in horse racing but I had heard stories about the many punters who had made fortunes betting on the horses. I decided to try my luck but when I looked at the list of runners for that year’s race I didn’t have the faintest idea about which one was likely to win. I decided to pick my horse by writing all their number on small pieces of paper, fold them in half and place them in a large bowl. I shuffled the bits of paper and, without looking into the bowl, picked out one of them. The number on the scrap of paper when I unfolded it was twelve, a horse named Hunting Tower. I looked up the betting on the internet and saw that Hunting Tower was given a twelve to one chance of winning. I decided to put a thousand Rand on Hunting Tower.
I went to the local betting hall and approached one of the book makers.
“I want to take a bet on the Durban July.” I told the man. “And the horse that I want to back is number twelve Hunting Tower.”
“Okay.” the man said. “The odds on Hunting Tower at the moment are twelve to one. How much do you want to bet?”
“A thousand Rand.” I replied.
The book maker raised his eyebrows.
“That’s a sizable bet for a young man who’s obviously never taken a bet on the horses before. Are you sure that you want to bet so much?”
I nodded.
The man picked up a betting book of yellow betting slips and wrote out the ticket. He handed it to me.
“This is your betting ticket.” he explained. “You can see that I’ve written the bet on it. The bet is one thousand to twelve thousand. That means that if Hunting Tower wins you’ll win twelve thousand Rand and you’ll get your initial stake back. Just bring the ticket to me if the horse wins, I’ll authenticate it, and give you a bank guaranteed cheque. Be careful not to lose
the ticket. I can’t pay you without the ticket. As a precaution, write your name and your I.D. on the back. Then nobody else can cash it."
I handed the thousand Rand to the man, thanked him, and left.
I didn’t give much thought to my Durban July bet or hold out much hope that it would come off considering the unscientific method that I’d used to select Hunting Tower. Instead, I tried, with no success, to get Ian to pay me back the three thousand Rand that I had lent him at the casino. His excuse for not repaying the money was that the money that he was owed had not been forthcoming and, until he finally received it, he couldn’t pay me.
“Besides,” Ian said, “the money that you lent us was for the three of us, not just me. As far as I’m concerned, I actually only owe you a thousand Rand and Bruce and Vic owe you the rest.”
“I gave the money to you.” I said. “And you promised to pay me back. Don’t try and get out of your obligations by involving Bruce and Vic.”
I could see that Ian was becoming angry but this didn’t scare me in the least. I had come to realise that, although Ian was older than me and more experienced, he wasn’t the tough guy that he tried to make out that he was. I had no doubt that if it ever came to a fist-fight between the two of us, I could easily beat him.
“And what will you do if I decide not to pay back your money?” Ian asked.
I stepped closer to Ian so that our faces were only a few inches apart. I stared straight into his eyes.
“Are you saying that you’re not going to pay me?” I asked, my voice soft but steady.
I saw fear fill Ian’s eyes. He stepped back quickly.
“No.” he said. “I’m not saying that. It’s just that I don’t have the money right now.”
“Well, you’d better get it soon.” I said quietly as I moved towards him. “And, if you believe that Bruce and Vic should pay their share then you’d better see that they do. I’m holding you responsible for seeing that I get all the money that is owed to me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Ian said, avoiding my stare.
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