That would actually be the better approach to betting. Deciding your bets all at once, in the very beginning, wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable. My bet was simply based on what I knew ahead of time.

“All that’s left is to gather more funds, I guess.”

We would be using the money we got from selling off the slave hunters, but that still might not be enough. We would need to pay attention to our odds in the first place.

“The open coliseum . . . You were saying they have eating competitions in Zeltoble, too, right? Should I have Filo compete in those?”

“Huh? Am I going to do something?”

Filo was a pig, so maybe we could use her as a competitive eater to win some money.

“There is a prize, but it’s not more than perhaps 20 silver pieces for the overall winner. Yes sir.”

“Not bad, but not great, either. Plus, we probably don’t want to have people recognizing her since I’m going to have her compete in the coliseum, too.”

“In that case, you might consider having her compete in the filolial races. Yes sir.”

“Filolial races? We’re pretty much talking horse racing, right?”

I had a feeling that would be more realistic. It seemed like people were always winning a lot at the horse races, so that might not have been a bad idea. Maybe we could aim for a big win like we were in the underground coliseum.

“The problem is that you have to compete in regional races several times before you can compete in the high-stakes races. Also, there’s still a month or so before it’s the season for the high-stakes races. Yes sir.”

“Ugh . . . I could consider having Filo compete if we could bet big in one go, but otherwise . . .”

“Due to how the betting works at a fundamental level, that probably won’t be possible. Yes sir.”

Let’s say I entered Filo in a tiny regional race as a no-name filolial and placed a straight bet on her. I wanted to bet big to win big, but as soon as I put the money down for the bet, the odds would swing in her favor a proportional amount. If there were no other attractive bets, or if there just weren’t many people betting in the first place, then the whole plan would be pointless.

This was true for most competitions, but according to the slave trader, winning bets wouldn’t be paid out until all of the betting money had been gathered from the betters. Regardless of how much we bet, if the overall pot wasn’t huge, then our winnings wouldn’t amount to much, either. On top of that, we’d be screwed if people figured out who we were, so we couldn’t really afford to make money by participating in the legit side of things.