Wootten watched, gripped, as Jovanovic took his place at the cream-colored leather fringe of a roulette table. The Croatian’s method was recognizable from footage of Tosa at the Ritz: the pause, the wager, the spread of chips. Like Tosa, he used the area of the betting felt set aside for wagering swiftly on segments of the wheel, where he could cover five adjacent pockets with a single chip on the “neighbors” section.
But Jovanovic couldn’t make it work. He didn’t hit anything for the first few spins and barely improved from there. A casino executive started mouthing off about them wasting his time. The Croatian blamed bad vibes in the room for messing with his instincts. “We have heart for roulette,” he said. “We’ve lost our hearts.” Wootten didn’t buy it. How could this be any more stressful than playing live, with real money?