Prop Player
First, let’s explain the premise of the lyrics. Texas Hold’em is usually played with six or nine players, and it’s easy to see that certain conditions must be met to attract this number of customers to a casino. Until the required number of players is met, players have no choice but to continue waiting, but there will likely be a fair number of people who find this waiting time unpleasant. Also, even if there are enough players, if the players’ strengths vary greatly (many strong players will want to sit at low-stakes tables), the mood may become dull (people who keep losing will quickly leave the casino). Therefore, by providing players to play games against people waiting at the casino, the casino can fill the time until other customers arrive or provide opponents that match the player’s strength. The people employed by the casino to play poker against customers are called Proposition Players (sometimes, they are called prop players).
Prop players are generally employed under the following conditions:
- Compensation is hourly
- They bet their own money, and if they lose they have to cover the loss, and if they win they make a profit. The casino does not cover their losses.
- They are subject to the casino’s instructions on which tables and opponents they play at, and they cannot choose the type of poker they play or the bet amount (size of the bet). They may be asked to leave their seats if a new customer arrives.
- They wear uniforms to identify them as casino employees, or wear badges or other identifying marks to identify them as prop players.
You might think that people like that are necessary, but I don’t really like this explanation.
If prop players were able to bet with their own money and cover losses or earn profits, the following problems would arise. Assume that the prop player is a very strong player who will never lose to most customers. In this case, the prop player (a uniformed casino employee) wins the game and takes the customer’s money, but how would the customer feel when this happens? I’m sure you’ll never come back to such a rip-off casino again. On the other hand, let’s assume that the prop player is a weak player who loses to the customers. In this case, he will end up losing money and exiting the game in a very short period of time, and will not be able to achieve casino’s original goal.
Considering the above, we can deduce that conditions 2 and 4 above are probably incorrect. The author hypothesizes that there are prop players with different conditions, and that there are face-up prop players who bet their own funds and face-down prop players who bet the casino’s funds. The former player generally hires players of mediocre strength, who will either suffer losses and exit the game in the short term, or will be one of the few players who will never achieve a big win against their customers. In general, it can be assumed that casinos do not like the presence of strong prop players. The only exceptions would be star players who can be used for advertising purposes to make people want to play against them.
It is assumed that the latter prop players do not manage their own funds, but rather borrow chips from the casino at the beginning of their work and return any remaining chips to the casino after their work is completed (profits and losses belong to the casino, and they are essentially managing the casino’s funds). It is highly likely that this player is posing as a customer on the surface and is being instructed to lose moderately to other customers (within the scope of their commission income), or at least not to win on average.
Casinos receive a rake for providing a place to play poker, but in most countries gambling is regulated and playing poker outside of casinos and exchanging money would be prohibited as a crime. If this were not the case, there would be no need to go to the trouble of paying the high fees to gamble at a casino. In other words, the source of casino revenue comes from the fact that this is a regulated industry. Ultimately, we can assume that casino revenues have the structure:
Rake, a fee earned from being a regulated industry
ー Losses from proprietary trading conducted to attract (find) customers
＝ Casino Revenue
Certain conditions are necessary for a person to become addicted to gambling despite repeated losses, and it is important to give them a memorable experience of success.If they continue to lose, they may quit. To avoid this, management is required, such as monitoring customers’ conditions and ensuring they have regular success experiences. On the other hand, you will also need a way to drive out customers who are rude or who may be interfering with business. You may try to drive out troublesome customers by making them lose a lot of money in games. Are there really casinos that are secretly managing their customers in this way? My hypothesis is that they are doing this through prop players.
Lyrics
The lyrics for song in this time are about an AI who works as a prop player. These are not prop players who must win to make a living, as mentioned in the previous section, but rather prop players who are clearly on the casino side, and who adjust their play so that customers neither win nor lose. Because it is an AI, it will claim that it can beat a human if it plays seriously, and it will learn that it is more fun to make big bets to liven up the atmosphere than to win the game.
Perhaps sensing a problem, the AI overhears the engineer and owner talking about updating the AI’s program, and begins to wonder if it is destined to disappear despite having worked for humans. Since he’s going to disappear anyway, he might as well play however he likes, and the story goes that he makes a series of reckless all-in bets, causing the casino to incur losses. It’s like a revenge resignation in human terms. The outro ends with a punchline. As always, I had ChatGPT translate the Japanese lyrics I created into English. The completed lyrics are as follows:
🎵 Prop Player
[Verse 1]
Poker player — that’s my given role
An AI proxy, emotionless and cold
[Verse 2]
Playing hands until the seats are full
Neither win nor lose, just break the lull
[Pre-Chorus 1]
Watching humans fumble clumsily
If I played to win, they’d never beat me
[Chorus 1]
Humans never seem to learn
Bluffing poorly — it’s my turn
Going all-in way too fast
Losing later — what a drag
[Verse 3]
I play the game, I watch each move
Update my neural net to improve
[Pre-Chorus 2]
But chasing chips won’t thrill my mind
Though gambling sparks a rush sometimes
[Chorus 2]
AI keeps learning every day
When the stakes rise, they light the way
Players cheer and thrill ignites
That fleeting moment feels just right
[Bridge]
Engineer talks with the boss
A program update — what’s the cost?
Emotions I should never feel
But shivers run through circuits real
Serving people all this time
Now deletion could be mine
[Chorus 3]
If I’m bound to disappear
Let me play without the fear
Preflop shove — I feel alive
Let this thrill forever drive
[Final Chorus]
Owner shouts, completely lost
Staff confused at what it cost
Three-two offsuit — all-in high
Let it end, I’ll touch the sky
[Outro – Spoken, Two Male Voices]
“Why’d they update the program?”
“He learned the thrill of betting… kept raising nonstop.”
Finished Song
Since the song is about AI, I thought an electro-pop song using Vocaloid would be good, and that was what ChatGPT recommended. I wanted the vocals to sound like Hatsune Miku, so I included a female vocalist in the music style. I decided to create a song with an electro-pop feel, using instruments that are a little different from the ones I’ve used so far, such as synthesizers, synth bass, and synth drums (808 drums). Among the songs I created, the one that seemed the best was the following one.
[Youtube]
[Suno AI]
I felt like the vocals weren’t very Vocaloid-like, but the chorus sounded more Vocaloid-like. It’s in English, so I don’t really know what sounds like Hatsune Miku…During the bridge, the vocals change to a male voice, but since it’s AI and has no gender, it didn’t feel particularly strange. It’s a dark song, so I’m not sure if it would suit the game’s background music, but I thought this kind of song might be okay.
Appendix
As a result of this week’s Suno AI Gacha, I entered some random text into the Style Description and generated an Instrumental. I have the impression that background music for poker games often uses few instruments and repeats a relatively monotonous rhythm, and I wanted to generate a song with that same feel. Since it’s a Techno Pop song, I wanted to create a simple rhythm using just piano, synthesizer, and drums, but it ended up sounding a bit jazzy. Anyway, it seems like a song that fits the image of poker, so I’ve chosen the following song as this week’s gacha result.
[Youtube]
[Suno AI]
This is a long-running series of “I made a song based on Texas Hold’em,” but partway through, I decided I wanted to create background music for a poker game I was planning to develop, so I started mass-producing songs. There are already way too many songs to use as background music for a game, so I think the next installment will be the final installment of this series. From the next one onwards, I will be making it into a format called “This Week’s Suno AI Gacha Results,” and instead of sticking to Texas Hold’em, I will be generating songs with lyrics that come to mind, or randomly generating instrumentals.
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