I Thought I Was Winning at Baccarat... Until I Realized I Was Just Rebuilding Myself

I used to think winning at baccarat meant mastering the game.

But what if the cards weren’t revealing fortune—they were revealing me?

Growing up as a second-generation Chinese-American in New York—with Shanghai roots and Irish-American blood—I found myself drawn to the glow of digital tables late at night. Not for thrills. Not for cash. But because, in those quiet hours between hands, the silence spoke louder than any payout.

The RNG didn’t cheat.

It just didn’t care.

I watched ten consecutive banker wins like lanterns on Lunar New Year—then stopped playing.

I didn’t need to ‘follow trends.’

I needed to stop pretending joy was something outside me.

In baccarat communities, we call it ‘福牛盛宴’—a festival of luck dressed as strategy.

But here’s what no one says aloud: we’re not playing a world. We’re rebuilding it—one silent bet at a time.

My mother once told me: ‘In China, we don’t chase red envelopes—we carry them home.’ My father said: ‘In Ireland, they don’t gamble—they grieve quietly.’

So I sat alone with my screen reader on, sketching each hand like brushstrokes on silk paper, wearing purple-gray-blue tones, as if the room were a temple without gods—but full of ghosts who remembered being real.

You don’t find answers here. You find space to breathe again.