Her stake alone would help the Ochoa family get back into a home rather than having eight people living in a motel room. It would help keep their restaurant going. But to win everything at the table… That could mean reclaiming their house and covering all the medical bills. It might even mean setting up a fund to help the families of other students. She wiped damp palms against her dress and tried to assume a poker face. It’d been a lot easier sitting in front of the computer screen. There she could be coolly rational and completely logical. There she could tell herself it was all about the intersection of mathematics and human behavior with a little luck and psychology thrown in. Her dreams of doing something big, something really good for a family she’d come to care deeply about, seemed like high aspirations. Alone in her apartment, she might have feared she’d catch gambling fever because of her genetics, but here, she felt creeping terror that the stacks and stacks of gold coins might fill her with a raw, covetous desire that would push into her everyday life and leave her discontent.
