A: Who do you think will be named head of the sales department after John resigns?

B: I guess Jeremy is the likely candidate. By dating the boss’s daughter, he has stacked the deck against the rest of us for an early promotion.

Note: This idiom means “to arrange matters secretly in one’s own favor or against one’s opponent.” The term, dating from the mid-1800s, originated in card playing, where it meant secretly arranging a pack of cards in a sequence that gave the dealer a winning hand. Also put as play with a stacked deck, it has been used figuratively both in the sense of a dishonest maneuver or simply in the sense of describing odds in one’s favor. For example, a statement like “As the home team, the Patriots are playing with a stacked deck” means only that the team has a natural advantage playing on a familiar field.