Netflix’s new drama series, Bet, is a remake of the popular anime show Kakegurui, so the premise might seem a bit of a stretch for those not familiar with the world. The protagonist, Yumeko, takes pride in being a compulsive gambler. And why not? Her parents were gamblers, and at a young age she figured out that there was nothing more tempting and fun than betting. She was expelled from multiple schools as a result of her addiction, but that didn’t stop Yumeko. She finally enrolled in a school meant for gamblers like her—St. Dominic’s. It seemed she had waited all her life to finally make it to the school reserved for elite kids. But what was the reason behind Yumeko’s desperation to join St. Dominic’s? Let’s revisit the most important events in the series to find out.
Spoiler Alert
What happened to Yumeko’s parents?
Yumeko’s parents had studied at St. Dominic’s, but she chose to keep that a secret from her peers. Everyone in the new school assumed she was not a legacy student, which was all the more reason why they thought she could be messed with. The students at St. Dominic’s belonged to influential families— ranging from business tycoons and politicians to even drug lords and gangsters. The institute was designed to familiarize its students with the harsh reality that they would eventually be exposed to. Instead of academic excellence or athletic prowess, the school was focused on getting its students hooked on gambling. Since life is pretty much a gamble, the parents believed their children would benefit from learning how to cheat, score, and win in life through various gambling games. The betting rooms were reserved only for the students, and teachers barely had any role to play in the institute. The Student Council was the decision maker within the premises of the school, and they were controlled by the school board, which consisted of the ultra-elite former students of the institute.
We gradually discover that Yumeko had a hidden agenda, which was why she desperately wanted to grab the attention of the Student Council and didn’t wish to remain just an invisible bystander. Moreover, Yumeko genuinely thrived on the adrenaline rush every time she won a bet. Before her parents passed away in a tragic ‘accident,’ her mother told her that the only way to win at gambling was by having fun while doing it. Yumeko grabbed everyone’s attention when she successfully won a bet against Mary. She knew Mary was cheating, but instead of exposing her, she decided to have complete faith in her fate, and that helped her win. With every gamble she won, Yumeko started to climb to the top of the leaderboard.
Despite her past rivalry with Mary, Yumeko extended a hand of friendship to her. Mary lost her seat at the Student Council and was forced to become a ‘pet’ because of Yumeko, and that was the reason why Yumeko always tried to make it up to her. She had also befriended Ryan on her very first day at her new school. He, at the time, was Mary’s ‘pet,’ and Yumeko gambled to free him. According to the school hierarchy system, the ‘house pets’ were of the lowest rank. They didn’t have money to gamble and were pretty much stuck with their misfortune. They had to obey their masters and cater to their whims and wishes.
During the house war, Yumeko was introduced to Wendy. While everyone had heard Wendy’s voice on the PA, students barely knew her. She was a ‘pet,’ and she took pride in knowing all house pet secrets. Yumeko discovered that there were secret passages in the school premises that were only used by the pets. Yumeko used this to her advantage to enter the Student Council room and gather information from the archive. She found a photograph of the Kakegurui Club. Her parents, Keiko and Jo Jabami, were members of this club, created by compulsive gamblers, and Yumeko was confident that someone from the club had killed her parents. She recalled seeing her parents get into their car, which exploded moments later.
Who was ‘Ray’?
Before her parents were killed when she was six, Yumeko remembered overhearing her parents engage in a heated conversation with a man named ‘Ray,’ and she was on the hunt for him. She was convinced he had orchestrated her parents’ murder, and she was hopeful that she would find information on him at St. Dominic’s. She wondered if Suki’s (an influencer and member of the School Council) relative, Ray Hennessy, was the man she was after. But during a challenge with Suki, she discovered that Ray Hennessy was his late uncle. He’d died in a hunting accident before Suki was even born. It became obvious to Yumeko that he was not the man she was looking for. She was disappointed in herself when she figured out that the ‘Ray’ she was searching for had been right in front of her eyes. Her roommate, Blake, had mentioned her father, but Yumeko didn’t realize that he was Raymond Rowe, the last Ray on her potential killer list.
After going through all the yearbooks, Yumeko finally found a photograph of Raymond Rowe with her parents, and she noticed he had a distinct mark on his hand. Yumeko connected the dots when Blake introduced her father to her, and she saw the same mark on his hand. He was the ‘Ray’ she was after, and Yumeko knew she had to kill him. She wanted to stab him to death the minute she figured out the truth, but she knew she had to wait for the right moment to strike. Yumeko decided to put together an explosive from scratch, and only her friend, Michael, knew about it. He didn’t approve of her plan and thought a single photograph was not enough to conclude that the Ray she was searching for was Blake’s father. But Yumeko refused to back out. She had already planned to kill him in the stadium during his daughter’s performance. Yumeko was excited and nervous as she was so close to avenging her parents. She pressed the button and waited for the explosion, but nothing happened. Michael confessed to deactivating the explosive; he’d decided to step in because he strongly believed his friend was making a terrible mistake. Yumeko was in tears when she watched Blake and her father leave the institute in their car. But unexpectedly, the car blew up, and they died instantly. We learn that Riri, Kira’s half-sister, was behind the explosion. She was asked by her father to prove her loyalty and dedication by planting an explosive, and she respected his order. It was a mob job; Ray was an informant, and the mob wanted to get rid of him.
So, who was ‘Ray,’ the killer? After Yumeko discovered a photograph of the Kakegurui Club, Michael looked extremely unsettled. We soon discover that Michael’s father had been a member of the club. Gabriel R. Adams was not a business tycoon but a gangster. In school, no one called him by his first name because he detested it; he was popularly known by his last initials, RA, or ‘Ray.’ When Michael figured out that his father was the killer Yumeko was after, he tried to hide the truth, and he lied to her. But Yumeko was an expert gambler, and she could read people very well. She noticed Michael nervously twitching his fingers, and she knew he was lying. The top ten on the leaderboard would get the chance to meet the school board, so Michael desperately tried to ensure that Yumeko stayed at the bottom of the list. After losing a bet to Ryan, she was forced to become a house pet, but Yumeko was confident that in the last eight hours before the results were announced, she would make it to the top.
How did Yumeko manage to make it to the top 10?
Yumeko had only eight hours to make it to the top 10, and she desperately tried to win as many side bets as she could. But things got complicated when the door to her room was locked from the outside, with Dori, the bellicose one, being responsible for it. Michael had convinced her to lock Yumeko in to keep her from making it to the top of the leaderboard. But he didn’t expect Yumeko to find an escape route in the room. The room had a secret passage hidden behind a shelf, and Yumeko was surprised when she arrived at the secret Kakegurui Club room. It was an abandoned hall with a huge collection of gambling games, and the chip that her mother had handed her the last time they were together turned out to be the key to the hall. Yumeko immediately knew that with Wendy’s help she could spread the word and gamble till midnight. Her plan was a success, and while Michael tried to distract her, she didn’t pay heed to him.
With no other options at hand, Michael told Kira (the head of the Student Council aka the most important student in school) about the secret, and she turned off the power to cancel whatever progress the students had made. Thankfully, Chad (Blake’s ex-boyfriend) had an eidetic memory, and he remembered everyone’s score. The students decided to keep track of the leaderboard using a blackboard and chalk. Kira realized that there was no way she could stop the games, so she decided to make it all the more interesting. Since Mary was at number 12, she suggested she take a big risk and challenge Yumeko; if she succeeded, she would make it back onto the Student Council. Kira wanted Mary to cheat, but the one lesson Mary had taken to heart from Yumeko was to never cheat and always leave everything to fate. Since it was a game of nerves, the one with their finger left in the blade trap would be the winner. Mary proved that she was unafraid, and even though the blade had almost sliced her finger in two, she didn’t remove her hand from the trap. Mary made it to the top 10, and Yumeko was at number 58. It was almost midnight, and Yumeko was still at the bottom of the list. But surprise, surprise, she had a backup plan! Yumeko had a side bet that hadn’t yet been counted. She had bet that Mary would make it to the Student Council by the end of the term, and since she was proved right, she’d made $7500, and just before the clock struck 12 am, Yumeko made it to the top 10.
Why did the school board target Yumeko’s parents?
The students who topped the list went on a retreat where they were introduced to the school board. Michael knew that his father would be killed if Yumeko found him, and he decided to step in. Ryan joined him as well; he believed that seeking revenge wasn’t the answer, and because he was in love with Yumeko, he felt it was his responsibility to save her. Meanwhile, Yumeko was obsessively searching for Gabriel and waiting to poison his drink. Kira was busy convincing her father, Arkadi Timurov, to make her the student representative of the school board. But her father was not impressed with the way Kira dealt with Yumeko. He later announced Riri as the new student representative (she’d proved her loyalty and commitment to him by planting the bomb that killed Blake and her father), leaving Kira completely devastated. Yumeko was not invested in the drama unfolding; she was keen on spotting Gabriel. When she found him, she brought him a drink with a few drops of poison in it. But as luck would have it, Gabriel got busy, and she struggled to find a way to hand him the drink. Michael managed to speak to his father in private, and he explained that Yumeko wanted to kill him because he’d murdered her parents, Keiko and Jo. But Gabriel refused to take help from his son. He was embarrassed of Michael because he’d failed to live up to his expectations. He always distanced himself from gambles, and Gabriel thought it was a sign of weakness.
Yumeko didn’t expect Arkadi to discuss her parents in the gathering. He mentioned that Jo and Keiko were an integral part of their group, but when they strayed from their path, it was on them to fix things. Fifteen years ago, Jo and Keiko had asked the board to invest in their creation. Keiko had invented a financial tool that promised to make wealth more accessible to people, and she called the digital currency Bitcoin. But the investors never got back their money, and that apparently resulted in their deaths. Yumeko realized that Gabriel had pulled the trigger, but everyone on the board had planned the murder. She decided she had to kill them all. Michael tried to talk her out of it, but surprisingly, Ryan came to her rescue. After being treated like an animal, Ryan refused to show any sympathy to the elite board members.
Yumeko was on her way to offer her poisoned drink to Gabriel when all of a sudden she noticed Kira had the glass in her hand. She had seen Yumeko spoke the drink, and she wanted her to confess the truth. Their altercation snowballed into a gambling challenge. Yumeko had taken a sip of the poison drink, and she had forcefully made Kira swallow it as well. As a result, they decided to play a game of Blackjack where the winner would get the antidote. During the game, Kira told Yumeko that her parents were killed because they had stolen their friends’ money and chosen to hide their innovation as well. Yumeko reasoned that her parents were threatened and they didn’t have a choice. Meanwhile, Yumeko and Kira ended the game in a tie, so they both got the antidote.
Why did Kira help Yumeko in the end?
After facing death, Kira gathered the courage to confront her father and ask him why he didn’t choose her as the student representative. Her father got aggressive when she started to beg him to reconsider, and he slapped her. In a desperate attempt, Kira attempted to choke Riri, but she soon realized that would not help her situation. She felt embarrassed and humiliated, and at the time, it was only Yumeko who seemed to understand her situation. Yumeko decided to strike a deal with Kira. She offered to help her get back her position in school and prove to her father that he’d made a mistake choosing Riri over her, and in return she would have to keep Yumeko’s murder attempt a secret. Yumeko and Kira realized that even though they were vastly different, they knew the pain of living a predestined life as a result of their families and circumstances. Kira believed that only killing Gabriel would have been a foolish move, since every board member was responsible for the death of her parents. Kira agreed to partner with Yumeko to help her execute her plan.
In Bet season 1’s finale, Gabriel confronted Yumeko and demanded to know what her plan was. Yumeko wanted him to pay the price of his crimes, but before she killed him, or at least attempted to do so, Gabriel suggested that she better know the reason why her parents were murdered. As it turned out, the board members killed Jo and Keiko after they refused to hand over the crypto key to the $30 billion that they apparently ‘stole’ from them. Kira interrupted their conversation and handed Yumeko the poison drink, nudging her to kill Gabriel. When she left the room, Gabriel didn’t hesitate to label Yumeko’s parents as con artists who didn’t play by the gamblers’ rules. He held his gun in his hand and stated that Yumeko would have to confess everything that she knew about her parents to Arkadi.
Yumeko stabbed him with the swizzle sword that was dipped in poison. She begged Gabriel to tell the truth, and only then would she hand him the antidote. He confessed that he had executed the plan, but the decision was taken by the Kakegurui Club. Yumeko dropped the vial of antidote to the ground, assuming it was all the truth she had to know, and she was ready to watch him die. But in his final moments, Gabriel confessed that Yumeko’s mother was still alive and he was the only one who knew her whereabouts. But it was already too late, and the poison killed Gabriel.
During Bet season 1’s ending, Kira walked into the room and announced that she would blame her father for Gabriel’s murder and stir up chaos, and Yumeko had to sneak out of the retreat. Yumeko got in Ryan’s car, and as they left the retreat, Yumeko stated that it was only the beginning of her revenge journey, hinting that season two might just be on the cards!
