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Encyclopedia WinterCampica - Suggest Change
Current Entry: Breaking the Bank
The through-line of the Ocean's 38 theme at Winter Camp XXXVIII was a collectible card game designed to prepare the youth for an assault on the Winter Camp Casino on the evening of Day Four. Throughout the weekette, Arrowmen had the chance to accumulate cards that represented co-conspirators inside the casino's operations. These cards could be used at the gaming tables to turn a loss into a win; their effects are listed in Table 7.
The names of the effects were ornamentation; what mattered was the numerical value on the card. At any casino game, a single point could be used to remove a chip from a wager, add a chip (of a color already wagered) to a bet, or change the color of any wagered chip. This effect was capped at 4 points per bet (5 if According to Hoyle (err, Mark) was played), but only one effect could be played on a single bet. At roulette, any card allowed the gambler to move a wager one space or line on the layout per point played. At blackjack, up to 4 points could be used to add or subtract that number of points to the hand's total.
By a wide margin, the cards were most effective at roulette. Arrowmen quickly deduced that a bet on the second dozen could be moved to any square on the layout by playing a card with at most 4 points, thus effectively guaranteeing a 35-1 payoff on every spin by moving to the winning number. After a number of chip fills from the vault, casino management closed the roulette table early. While the casino barely held on against the card onslaught, ending the evening with a few chips still on hand, campers discovered at the close of gaming that Alan Wilson, who held the Architect card, had used it to construct a device in a side bunkroom which raided and emptied the casino's vault.