The Long Odds

The Arena's betting-floor — a raked gallery of chalk-boards and cash-boxes where the Marrow Lances' coin, the crowd's coin, and one very calm oddsman's coin all change hands on the same afternoon.

Sennet Crull chalks the odds before every bout and never once looks surprised by how they turn out, which is exactly why half the Arena swears he rigs fights and the other half swears that's slander against the most boring man in Highbridge. He doesn't rig anything; he just watches more fights than anyone alive and has stopped being wrong about them. The floor takes a cut off every wager, funds a good third of the Arena's purses, and is the one place in the quarter where a fighter's whole reputation gets priced in coin before the sand is even raked.