The Netflix series Bet, based on the anime and manga titled Kakegurui, is a fast-paced TV show where kids gamble using everything from cash to human pets to their own lives. The show is thoroughly entertaining, especially if you like to play a hand yourself. Each episode includes one big game that pushes the plot forward. While some of the games are basic card games, others are slightly different. The show follows Yumeko on her journey to avenge her parents’ deaths in a car accident when she was 6 years old. She comes to St. Dominic’s because she’s after a man named Ray. This man is a parent of one of the legacy students of the school. The only way for her to get to him, though, is if she climbs the ranks of the gambling leaderboard, defeating anybody who comes in her way. If she makes it to the top 10, she will make it onto the student council, which would lead her to a special event where she can meet the school board. Yumeko’s journey isn’t a straight climb upward, though. She gets sent all the way to the bottom somewhere in the middle of the show, but how does she ultimately make it onto the council? By playing some more games. With that, let’s get into the games in Netflix’s Bet.
Spoiler Alert
Episode 1—Skirmish
In episode 1, Yumeko accepts Mary’s challenge to take her first step into gambling at St. Dominic’s. The game Mary chooses is called “Skirmish,” in which each player gets dealt 7 cards, and there are 7 rounds. You play one card in each round, and the high card wins. In this game, Yumeko knows that Mary is cheating, so she bets 10,000 and uses her mom’s poker chip—well, the mirror on it—to see what hints Ryan is giving Mary. She then ends up upping the ante to 100,000 dollars, offering to donate half of it to Ryan if she wins, setting him free from pet status. Yumeko’s big trick to make sure Mary doesn’t cheat is playing the rest of her cards blind. Yumeko wins.
Episode 2—Ice Breaker
Suki challenges Yumeko to a game called Ice Breaker, in which both players’ heart rates are monitored. The cards are drawn in turns, and each player gets 30 seconds to ask the other a question based on prompts. The person whose heart rate goes over 85 bpm first loses. Suki tries to use Yumeko’s parents’ deaths against her. But interestingly, Yumeko brings up Suki’s hidden past and also starts a side bet, stating that by the end of the game, Suki will lose all his followers. Michael and Yumeko reveal “Alpha Sean,” Suki’s previous identity, a macho hunter. Yumeko wins.
Episode 3—First Blood
In episode 3, Yumeko wants the library books that Dori has taken and suggests they gamble for them. But Dori doesn’t want to play a card game; she wants to play a “real game.” So, she makes Yumeko choose from a bunch of cards, and unfortunately, she picks Dance Dance Revolution. Yumeko loses 60,000 while playing this game, so she has to figure out how to get back on top. She asks for a rematch, and this time it’s a duel with a weapon of your choice; whoever draws first blood is the winner. Yumeko wins.
Episode 5—House Wars
In episode 5, the houses have a game where they have to get the flags of the other houses while protecting their own. But, additionally, each person participating has a card on them, which they can use to duel people from other teams; the highest card wins, but a 2 can beat an Ace. The loser’s out of the game; the last house standing wins. Heart House with Yumeko, Mary, and Ryan wins, but the bounty is chocolates.
Episode 6—Bet Gala
St. Dominic’s dance is called the “Bet Gala,” and there’s a queen and king who get crowned. Ryan and Yumeko put on a great show, but it all goes to waste when Suki makes a return from the dead. He makes it so that Yumeko and Ryan have to play each other for 100,000 dollars. Yumeko chooses Skirmish again, but when Ryan starts losing on purpose, Yumeko makes it so that he wins, sending her straight to pet status.
Episode 7—House Pet Hunt
Episode 7 sees a real hunt, Hunger Games style, where pets and owners are handcuffed together. The owners get automatic bows and arrows, whereas the pets get some tiny little excuse for a weapon. The goal is to successfully get jeweled eggs that are worth money, the golden egg being 100,000 dollars. Yumeko uses a special rule to bet her debt and join the game, but she ends up losing because Suki was never playing to get the egg; he was playing to get Yumeko. And more importantly, when Kira points her arrow at Yumeko, eyeing the golden egg, Ryan stops her from getting the egg because he fears for her life.
Episode 8—Game of Nerve
In episode 8, the kids find the Kakegurui club and play all the games they can until the term ends. It’s about 8 hours, and the only way out for Yumeko is if she miraculously gets all her money back. Ryan helps her by returning the 50,000 dollars she gave him after the first game, making her able to place bets. Yumeko and Mary play a game of nerve, in which there’s a blade connected to one single string in a group of strings. The players place their fingers under the blade, and the player with the last finger left on the table is the winner. Mary wins even after her finger is slammed with the blade. But Yumeko bet a long time ago that Mary would end up back in the council, making her a winner too and sending her straight up the leaderboard to council status.
Episode 9—Piggy Bank
In episode 9, Ryan ends up dressed as a waiter and enters the party for the board and council members. But this makes him an involuntary participant in the game of “Piggy Bank,” where the waiters have to fight to get the cash in the pig’s mouth. But when Ryan gets this cash, he becomes the pig himself, sending all the other waiters chasing after him. Ryan basically beats everyone up, saving himself.
Episode 10—Blackjack
In the final episode, Mary and Kira play a game of blackjack for the antidote, but Kira’s dad also says that the loser has to leave the school, but that doesn’t really matter because they’d be dead if they lost. The objective of the game is to get a hand totaling 21, or as close to it as possible, without going over. Every player is dealt two cards to start with, with the number cards having a value equal to their number and the ace being either 1 or 11, whichever better suits the player, while face cards are all worth 10 each. It is impossible to bust with just two cards, but if the value of your hand is really low, you can ask the dealer to hit you with another card. The dealer has less to worry about in all this, their play being much more structured and entirely up to chance. If the sum of the dealer’s first two cards is 17 or more, they must stand on that total, but are forced to draw more cards otherwise until the total does come to 17 or higher. If the dealer wins, the house wins, and the players are out of luck. When Mary won with the dealer’s play, Yumeko and Kira called it a draw and shared the antidote, making it out alive on a technicality.
