stack the cards

“And it’s a gamble he has made without thinking about the odds or trying to stack the cards.”

Occasionally she was able to stack the cards or spoil the deck in a way they did not discover until they were well into the game, and she laughed and glowed with blissful gratification when they all hurled their cards down disgustedly and began punching her sharply on the arms or legs as they called her filthy names and warned her to stop fooling around.

“How high can I stack the cards against myself — a pregnant brown woman?” said Ms. Miller, who is of Vietnamese and European descent.

“We might as well learn not to expect nothing from Southern Justice. They’re going to stack the cards against us every time,” Sterling said.

“There are deep systemic problems that stack the cards against the homeowner.”