Gambling and Confidence Games Exposed - H.W. Royal

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
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This is an annotated and enlarged edition of
“Gambling and Confidence Games Exposed” by H. W.
“Kid” Royal, copyright © 1896 and published by the
author in New York, NY USA.
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GAMBLING
AND
Confidence Games Exposed.
SHOWING HOW THE
PROPRIETOR OF GAMBLING HOUSES AND THE PLAYERS

CAN BE CHEATED.
—
Giving the Introduction and Story of all Confidence Games.
—
EXPOSING ALL CROOKED TOOLS
AND
Giving the Exact Per Cent. of All Square

Games.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY
H. W. ROYAL,
New York, N. Y.
INDEX.
Page
Sketch of My Life .................................................... 6
Gold Brick Scheme ................................................ 11
The Story of the Over-Issue.................................... 23
Green Goods ......................................................... 25
Bunko or Confidence ............................................. 27
Short Change ........................................................ 29
Three Card Monte .................................................. 30
Three Shell Game .................................................. 36
Race Track or Wire-Tapping Gag ............................ 37
Spectacle Fraud .................................................... 38
EXPOSÉ OF CROOKED GAMBLING.

Faro Bank .............................................................. 39
Roulette ................................................................. 41
Hazard ....................................................................41
Craps ..................................................................... 42
Draw Poker ............................................................ 44
Giving Victims the Best of It.................................. 46
At Faro Bank .......................................................... 48
At Roulette ............................................................. 49
Big Hands on Trains ............................................... 49
Top and Bottom...................................................... 52
Soap Game ............................................................. 56
Spindle Game ..........................................................56
Bookmakers’ Wheel, Policy ..................................... 57
Bucket Shop, or Tape Game ................................... 58
Per Cent of All Square Games ................................. 60
APPENDIX.
Secrets of Gambling................................................ 64
How Gamblers Win at Games ................................. 69
Publisher’s Recommended Titles ..............................77
4
GAMBLING EXPOSED. 5
GAMBLING EXPOSED.
—
HISTORY OF MY LIFE.
I was born the first day of July, 1858, in Covington,
Newton County, Georgia, forty miles from Atlanta, on
the Georgia Railroad. In the fall of 1864 we lived in
Chattanooga, Tennessee. That is my first recollection of
anything. My father was in the Fifth Georgia Regiment,
the McDuffie Rifles, and at that time was quartered at
Chattanooga. I remember well when Chattanooga was
shelled. We lived near the Union Depot, or car shed, and
I played in holes made by cannon balls a few minutes
after the balls fell, some of the holes being five and six
feet deep.
When Chattanooga was set on fire, my mother,
sister, younger brother and myself walked out of the
city on the state road, crossing fourteen different
bridges over Chickamauga Creek within eight miles. We
went to a place called Bird’s Mill. We lived in Mr. Bird’s
house for about two months. While there the place was
surrounded by seventeen thousand soldiers under
General Thomas. All the flour in the mill was thrown in
Chickamauga Creek. Bird was taken out as a guerrilla
and would have been hung but for the interference of
my mother, who called the captain who saved his life.
We could not go then ahead of the army, but had to
stay behind General Thomas’ army as refugees. We
walked all the way from Bird’s Mill to Ringgold, Georgia,
6
GAMBLING EXPOSED. 7
through Tunnel Hill into Dalton, to Calhoun, to

Kingston, Cartersville, Big Shanty, Kennesaw
Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, then into Atlanta. We took
the train from Atlanta and went to Washington, Wilkes
County, Georgia, and remained there until my father
came home from the war. We went from there to
Augusta, Georgia, and lived there until 1867, while my
father worked in Columbia, South Carolina, on state
work in the printing business. We moved from there to
Sparta.
In 1867 my father published a paper called the
Hancock Journal, in Sparta, Hancock County, Georgia.
He used the upper part of the court house for his
printing office. At that time all small towns in the State
of Georgia were under martial law, and a company of
soldiers who were stationed at Sparta were camped in
the lower part of the court house. It was so handy for
me that I learned to play cards among the soldiers when
I was nine years old, and before I was ten, I was able to
cheat in different games. In 1868 the C. T. Ames circus
came through there and I saw a man playing three-card
monte. Being a bright boy, they took a fancy to me, and
I ran away with the show and was with them about two
months. Then my father found me and brought me
back. While I was with them, I learned to play three-
card monte. They used me to play because I was so
small that the police would not interfere with me where
they would with a man.
After that my father took me in his printing office.
He died in 1870. From 1870 to 1872 I published a paper
in Thompson, Georgia, called the “McDuffie County
Journal,” doing all the work connected with the paper,
writing the articles, setting the type and running the
press myself. Then I went to Augusta, Georgia, and was
8 GAMBLING EXPOSED.
in the produce business there about a year. Not being

satisfied with that, I commenced on the road playing
three-card monte, and in 1873 I learned the three shells
and worked all through that section of the country. In
1874 I was in Atlanta at the State Fair, where I met a
fakir who took me with him through North and South
Carolina. I made about $2,000 with him, but at
Tarboro, North Carolina, he ran away at night with all
the money. After that I shifted for myself until the spring
of 1876 through that country.
I started out on the 6th day of April, 1876, with the
Sells Brothers’ show from Chattanooga, Tennessee. I
was with the show until the 20th of April. At Louisville,
Kentucky, I left them and went to Cairo, Illinois. The A.
B. Rothschild show, owned by John O’Brien, of
Philadelphia, started out on April 21st, which was on
Saturday, in the Centennial year. I was with that show
very nearly all summer, playing three-card monte and
shells. This was my first trip to the North.
From 1877 to 1885 I was around with different
circuses all over the country. In the fall of 1885, I went
to Kansas City, where I ran the shell game at the State
Fair four days and won about $80,000, of which
$20,000 was my share. I took that $20,000 and bought
out a brickyard, where dry pressed brick were made in
the winter time. On the 11th day of May, 1886, my
brickyard was completely destroyed by a cyclone which
left me without a dollar. That was gambling money. I
started out again in 1886 gambling at fairs. I had the
privileges of a number of fairs every year until 1889.
In the spring of 1889, I went to Oklahoma. At
Purcell, Choctaw Nation, over the line from Oklahoma,
before Oklahoma was opened up, where I went about
eight days before, where I won about $10,000. I then
GAMBLING EXPOSED. 9
went to Guthrie and preempted two lots there, and put

up buildings on the corner of Second and Harrison
streets. In the spring of 1890, I sold out my interest
there for about $20,000 and left Guthrie. I then came
to Chicago and bought a circus outfit, and went out on
the Chicago & Great Western to St. Paul, and on the
Soo Line up through Michigan.
At Ishpeming, Michigan, in July, we were advertised
to give a balloon ascension and parachute leap (in
connection with the circus) which was free. Owing to
the elements it was impossible to inflate a hot-air
balloon. The miners, who were Cornish-English, not
understanding why the balloon did not go up, and
angry at losing the whole day at their work, seemed to
feel pretty sore. When the balloon failed to make the
ascent, they all seemed filled with a desire to secure
something to remember it by, as a relic. There was not
enough of the balloon to go around, so they came back
and, in order to supply everybody with a little memento
of the occasion, they had to commence on the show.
Everybody got a piece of the show, and what they did
not want they burned up, and I have never seen a side
pole, stake or a piece of rope of that show since. That
was gambling money.
The balance of the year 1890 I lived in Chicago. In
1892 I moved to Columbus, Ohio, and opened up a
gambling house at 135 South High street, where I
prospered and made plenty of money. In the spring of
1893, I moved to Chicago.
During the World’s Fair, at a place on the south side
of Sixty-third street, known as the Arcade, between
Hope and Stony Island avenue, I had thirty-two tables
in a gambling house and about sixteen tables out in the
lobby. The tables in the gambling house were all
10 GAMBLING EXPOSED.
straight gambling. The sixteen tables in the lobby were

all robbery. I also had a place at 5532 Lake avenue, with
sixteen tables in it, at the same time, known as “The
Denver.” Next door to “The Denver,” at 5530, I had a
place in the South Park Hotel in connection with
Houston’s saloon.
I made at the World’s Fair in the neighborhood of
$100,000. After dividing up with politicians and
gamblers I had about $25,000 left. Before Hopkins’
election I gave $1,000 toward his campaign fund, but I
do not believe that the parties I gave it to ever showed
up a cent of it. Then I was promised to be taken care of
the same as any of the other gamblers in town.
I fitted up a place at 144 East Madison street, in the
basement, bought a saloon out at 189 West Madison
street and fitted the back room for a gambling house
with all the tools, paraphernalia, etc. At Concordia Hall,
corner of Ohio street and Milwaukee avenue, I also
fitted up a gambling house and made a proposition to
give up as campaign money $2,000 a week. I placed up
$10,000 as a guarantee to apply on the last five weeks
of the year, and in case I failed to pay up the $2,000
any week, I was to forfeit that $10,000. The people I put
the money up with kept that $10,000, took the $2,000
I gave them for the week, and the understanding was
that I was to have the exclusive crap privilege in the
central district and on the west side and the northwest
side, but everybody opened at the same time after they
had taken my money.
They let me run one week and then closed me up.
They would not allow me to open any place, and even if
I got work in a house, they would send word to
discharge Royal or they would close the house up. At
that time I had made up my mind to quit gambling. I
GAMBLING EXPOSED. 11
went to the Chicago Dispatch and I gave them a

complete exposé of crooked dice, which they published.
When the Civic Federation made its fight against
Hopkins and the open gambling, I dictated a number of
articles, unknown to anyone, paid for them and had
them published in a Chicago paper.
Since then I have been living on what money I had
left, not having a chance to make a five-cent piece for
myself. No matter what town I would go to, the Chicago
gamblers would write letters and try to do me all the
harm they could. I expect to visit every city in the United
States with my exposé.
GOLD BRICK SCHEME

That has beaten so many men whose greed for gold
overbalanced their better judgment. Had they stopped
to think of the old adage, that “all that glitters is not
gold,” they would undoubtedly have profited by it, but
man’s greed for gold is wonderful to behold.
To work this game, it takes three men—one man
who poses as an ignorant western fellow with no
education whatsoever, born in some of the southern
states, most generally South Carolina. He will first
make a trip through the country, representing himself
as a gentleman who is looking for a good farm of about
300 acres or more for his sister, who is a widow and has
two sons, and as her husband lived in this section of
the country in his younger days and always said when
the boys grew up he intended to move out west on their
account, as there were good schools and away from city
life, “So my sister wanted me, during my vacation, to
look up a good farm near some town where there is a
good safe bank, as she will deposit ten to fifteen
thousand dollars,” so of course he will ask Mr. Farmer
all about the responsibility of the bank and how much

interest they pay, and to be certain he will ask Mr.
Farmer about how much the bank has ever paid him,
and on what amounts. Well, Mr. Farmer will tell him he
got three per cent on two thousand.
“Well, mister,” says the gentleman, “would they not
give more on a larger sum, or did you ever try them?”
“Oh, yes, I did get 3½ on ten thousand, but I got scared
of the banks and drew it out.” “Well, did you invest it?”
“Oh, no, I put it in the safe deposit vaults.” “And you
still keep it there, do you?” “Oh, yes,” says Mr. Farmer.
Now this is all Mr. Gentleman wants to know, so he
will make arrangements with Mr. Farmer to come out
in the fall or spring, as the occasion may be, and bring
his sister and the boys to look at it. But she would
undoubtedly buy it. Now he bids Mr. Farmer good-bye
and goes on to another about thirty or forty miles, as a
general thing far enough, however, that he feels certain
they will not meet, as that would spoil the game should
it happen.
Now he will go through the same thing with the next
farmer that he did with the first, and so on till he has
got about twenty on his list, as he keeps a diary of them
all, so when he gets back to New York he will talk it all
over with his pals, read over names of men and
amounts they have got, and so forth.
Now you must understand all of this will take two or
three months to do and do it right, so you see by the
time he gets around to them again most of them have
forgotten all about it and would not know him at any
rate, for he will look like a different man altogether, for
he will be dressed like a miner and changed in
appearance so much that his own mother would not
recognize him. Now he comes with an entire different
proposition; this time he is looking for his old-time

partner, who was separated from him about seven years
since, and came back east to his old home, as he had
not been well for some time before he left, and thought
the change would be good for him, and besides, he had
an old aunt whom he wanted to see before she died.
Now he will pretend to the farmer that this is the
exact locality that his old partner came to, and will seem
to be very much surprised to find out that this is not
the man he has come all the way from Old Mexico or
Origania to see. He will ask the farmer if there is not
some other man in that neighborhood by that same
name, and of course there is in all probability some one,
and the farmer will give him all the information he is
possessed of and Rufus will thank him, and at the same
time tell him that he is the first man that he has met
since he left home that appeared as though he wanted
to talk to him. Said everybody he had met ‘peared as
though that they thought he wanted to borrow
something from them, and at the same time would put
his hand in his pocket and pull out a large roll of bills
and exhibit it; whereupon, the farmer, thinking him an
ignorant fellow, will advise him not to be showing his
money to strangers; that by so doing he laid himself
liable to be robbed, not thinking for a moment that he
was setting his trap for him. But in reply to this he
would tell the farmer that he did not show it to
everybody, but that he knowed he was an honest man
and that he liked the way he talked to him, and he
would go and see the man that the farmer had referred
him to, and if he was not his old pard, he might come
back and see him.
Thereupon, bidding the farmer good-bye, he will go
and meet his pal and talk it all over and next day go
back to the farmer and tell him that the man he went
to see was not the man he was looking for at all and he
had come to the conclusion to give it up for a bad job.
Said he: “It is like looking for a needle in a hay stack.”
Now he will take the farmer off to one side and say
to him in a Hoosier-like way: “Now, look a-here, if I will
give you a good chance to get rich, do you reckon you
would be honest with a feller and not try to gouge him
out of all he had?”
Thereupon the farmer will want to know all about it
and will treat him right, and if he does not believe him,
he can ask any of the neighbors and they will tell him
that “I am an honest man.”
“Well, now, I will just tell you the fix I am in. You see
I hain’t had anything but bad luck since I left down
home. You see, in the first place I took the wrong train
and had to go back and start over again; then next thing
my partner took sick and I had to leave him back at
such and such a place,” generally about thirty miles
from where the farmer lives, and now that he had come
on here and could not find his old partner.
“Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you if you will treat
me and my partner right. You see, it is just like this:
When my old partner left me about seven years ago, we
divided up; he had about $4,000 and I had the same.
He said, ‘Now, Rube, if you should ever strike anything
and should need me, you can get Bill Johnson to write
to me and I will come back here. He will always know
where I am, for I will write to him and he will tell you
where I am.’ So, you see, I haven’t heard from him for
nigh onto two years, when Bill got the last letter from
him, and now I begin to reckon he’s dead.
“You see, sir, I am almost ashamed to own it, but to

tell you the truth, I ain’t got any school learning, for,
you see, I was born and raised down in Alabama and
did not get any chance to go to school, but I reckon I
ain’t the only one in the world who can’t read and write.
Now, as I was going to say, me and my partner down
here, who is sick, we’ve got a good claim down home
and we’ve took out enough money to buy a mill, and
take back home with us. But now I don’t know what to
do.
“You see, we reckoned on finding my old partner
here, whose name is jist the same as yourn, and we did
intend to go to Pittsburgh and buy the mill. You see,
that is where all of the big mills are made, and my old
partner would know jist what to do, for he had good
book learnin’ and they could not cheat him, and then
you see we reckoned on getting a patent on our ground,
and that takes a man that can read and write and
figure, for if he can’t read and write them big bugs down
there will jist put you down on the wrong claim. We have
been powerful careful so far and do not want to make
any mistake.
“You see, it is jist like this: The way I came to get in
this claim is like this: My partner, who is down where I
told you, he’s an Injin; it was him that found the mine
and put me and my old partner in with him. We three
had been together for about six years when we first went
to that country. You see we couldn’t talk the language
and had to have some one with us who could talk. At
that time the Indians were on the war-path all the time,
so we got this man, I mean the Injin, to join us, and he
was with us six years. We eat together, slept together,
and everything we got we divided it up equally. So when
my old partner or me wanted to go a prospecting, this
man could tell us if there was any danger. So after the

Jaaronama war broke out, this man—oh, I forgot to tell
you his name; it is Oray—well, he left us and went with
General Crook’s command as a scout for General Crook
and stayed with him until Jaaronama was captured,
and sent somewhere down to the states; I forgot the
name of the place.
“Now, him, me and my old partner worked some
placers for about six months, but we did not make
much, and my old partner made up his mind to come
to the states. So Oray left and went out prospecting and
I did not see him again for nigh onto a year, when one
of his squaws came to my camp and told me that Oray
was in the guard house, at Fort Apache, and wanted me
to come with her and try to get him out.
“And ye see at that time I was freighting for the
Government, and I knowed Captain Hanks, who keeps
the settler’s store, and he knows Oray, too, so I went
and told him and he said, ‘Yes, I heard something about
it;’ so I asked Captain Hanks to go to the Fort with me,
which he did. And upon inquiring we were told that
Oray had been put in the guard house for horse
stealing; that was the charge, but I told Captain Hanks
that I did not believe it, and he agreed with me; so we
were taken into the guard house and had a talk with
Oray, who told us all about it, and which was the truth.
“Oh, you bet, Oray was tickled to death to see me
and commenced to tell me all about it. He said he came
in to the Fort to get some supplies and to sell some of
his gold, and the first thing he knew Colonel Todd had
him arrested and put in the guard house, and had
taken all of his gold from him, which was about forty
pounds. You see he did not know what the charge was
that was put against him until we told him. Now he had
been in the guard house over three weeks, so we told

him that he was charged with horse stealing, and he
said ‘twas a big lie, and that we had ought to know him
better than that, which I did, and told Captain Hanks
so, for I knowed Oray too well for anybody to try to make
me believe that Oray would steal.
“Well, I says to the Captain, ‘Let’s go and see if we
can get him out;’ so we left Oray and went to see Colonel
Todd and had a long talk with him in his big office, and
he told us about a million lies about poor Oray, but we
did not let on but what we believed all he told us about
Oray; so finally we got him to consent to let Oray out,
so we went back to the guard house with the Colonel
and he sent in and had Oray brought out from the
guard house in the Colonel’s big office, and the Colonel
say to him, ‘If I ever hear of you stealing again, I will not
let you off so easy;’ all of which was a big lie about Oray
stealing horses.
“Well, sir, he had abused Oray terribly; stuck a
bayonet into him, hung him up by the thumbs, starved
him and would not give him any water for two days at a
time. Ye see he done all of this to make Oray tell where
his mine was located. But Oray told me that he never
would do it if he had killed him, and I know Oray would
not. Well, we got him out, anyhow. Now say the Colonel
to us, ‘Gentlemen, I would be pleased to do you a favor
any time,’ and shook hands with us. Then we turned to
Oray and said to him, ‘Come on, and let’s go,’ and he
answered me in Injun and said, ‘Well, ain’t they going
to give me my gold?’ And I turned to the Colonel and
said, ‘Oray wants his gold that you took away from him,’
and he made a big laugh and said, ‘Why, that Injun’s
crazy, he didn’t have any gold.’ Well, now, I didn’t know
what to think for a little while; I thought maybe that
Oray was a little crazy on account of being in the guard

house so long. Anyhow, I told Oray to come on, which
he did, and we went to my camp and had a long talk,
and Oray told me all about the mine, how long he had
been on it, and how many miles it was to it.
“Well, when Oray got done, I knowed he was tellin’
me the truth, and we went next day to see Captain
Hanks and told him that Oray did have the gold. ‘Well,’
said the Captain, ‘I don’t see what we can do. The
Colonel says he did not have it, and of course he could
bring up a hundred soldiers to prove that he did not
have,’ and my advice was to let it go, for the Colonel
might get mad and have Oray put back in the guard
house, and then it would be hard for us to get him out
again; so I looked at it the same way and told Oray so,
and Oray said, ‘Well, we’ll let it go,’ and in two days after
this we started out to the mines.
“Well, sir, by gum, what do you think, when we got
there I recognized at once that my old partner (whose
first name I forgot to tell you is Jim), I said to Oray,
‘Why, Oray, you, me and Jim were here fifteen years
ago.’ ‘Well,’ said Oray, ‘I know that, but didn’t old
Jaaronoma drive us out?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ which he did.
Well, sir, you can bet I was surprised when Oray
showed me how much gold he had taken out in less
than one year. I said to Oray, ‘Now, the best thing we
can do is to stake off three claims, one for me, one for
you, and one for Jim.’ ‘Cause you see, if we miners don’t
do that, have ‘em staked off and recorded, anybody
could come and jump them; so the first thing I done was
to stake off fifteen hundred feet for each of us. Now, you
see, I have got to get them recorded, and I told Oray that
I would go to Prescott, that’s the capital, you know, and
get old Bill Johnson (he’s the blacksmith) and have him
to write three notices, and I’ll tell him that I’m going out
prospecting, and if I find anything I will locate him a
claim. So he wrote the three notices, and one for
himself, too; so now I didn’t know if he had written them
right, and, to be sure, I took the notices to a feller I had
teaming for me and told him that I had some letters that
I wanted him to read for me. He looked at them and
said, ‘Why, Jarvis, these are not letters, these are
notices.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘read them anyway.’ You see, I
wanted to be sure that old Johnson had writ them all
right. But they were all right anyhow, so I put ‘em in my
pocket and next day started back to the mine and put
my three notices up before I eat or slept. ‘Now,’ I said,
‘Oray, we’ll go to work and take out enough gold to buy
a good mill, and as soon as we get enough to buy it we
will go to the states and hunt up our old partner, Jim,
and he will attend to everything for us, ‘cause, you see,
Jim is powerful smart.’
“So, now, you can see Mr. —————, the kind of a fix
we are in, and I don’t hardly know what to do, but I’ll
tell you what I will do, and it is this: I’ll just gin you
Jim’s interest in the mine and what gold we’ve got here
with us; that is, if you’ll be honest and not try to cheat
us out of all we have. Now, all you have to do is jist tend
to our business, sech as keepin’ the books, and go with
us to Pittsburgh and buy the mill after we have been to
the mint and sold our gold and got the greenbacks for
it. Now, understand me, I am willing to do this if Oray
is, and I know he will be satisfied after he has a talk
with you, and I know you will like him. Now, the best
thing we can do will be to go and see Oray. You needn’t
take any money with you; I’ll pay all the expenses.”
Now, Mr. ————— will see the Indian and the gold
chunks, which are molded in a cone shape, which will
be bored in certain places. Those places where the holes

are bored will be where there is pure gold. There will be
enough bored out, say about $10. These borings are, of
course, pure gold. And they are taken to the third party,
who is always in the background, who represents
himself as the United States Assayer. He will test the
gold and, of course, say it is the finest he has ever seen,
which, of course, will satisfy Mr. —————, and, if
necessary, why, of course, the assayer will put in with
Mr. ————— to buy the gold.
Now, the player, after getting this good test, will say
to Mr. —————, “Now, let us go out and get the gold
and the Indian and go right to your home and we will
leave the Indian at your home; that is, if he don’t want
to go with us to the mint, where we will sell the gold and
get the regular greenbacks for it, and then go to
Pittsburgh and make arrangements about the mill.”
Of course, this all looks very bright to Mr. —————
, getting a third of all this for nothing; so they start out
to bring the gold and the Indian in, but lo, and behold!
when they go out to see Mr. Indian, he’s got contrary,
so the player will tell Mr. —————, and says he can’t
do anything with him. Says that the Indian is afraid of
getting cheated, and says if Mr. ————— is an honest
man, he would not want all of this for nothing, and the
best that he will do is to get paid for his part, which is
one-third, and the player, of course, is always willing to
trust his new-made friend and partner and insists upon
Mr. ————— paying the Indian his third, and that he
will be responsible and let him, Mr. ————, handle and
control it all, which, of course, always looks good to Mr.
—————, and he puts up the money to pay the Indian.
After the money is turned over to the Indian, the
Indian delivers up the gold, which turns out to be plain
everyday brass with the exception of about three places

where they have been bored. These places generally
contain about sixty dollars in each spot where the
boring is to be done. Now, the player takes the farmer
with his treasurer to the depot and there will tell him
that the Indian is not ready to go that evening or
morning, whichever suits the occasion, and will tell him
that he had better go right home, and me and the Indian
will be at his home the next day, and, of course, this
ends the deal. The farmer has got the brass and the
experience, and the Indian, the assayer, and miner the
money. Now, they will write a letter and address it to
the farmer’s home, so he will get the letter upon his
arrival. The contents of the letter will generally be
something like this:
“Mr. —————: You will no doubt be surprised when
you read this letter to find out that you have been the
victim of the old, gold brick racket. Now, my advice to
you is to keep it to yourself, as you will only make
yourself the laughing stock of your community and
have all the school children hollering out, ‘There goes
old gold brick.’ In fact, it will be a hard matter for you
to make any one believe that you could have possibly
been such a big fool as to pay out such a large sum of
money for a couple of chunks of brass. I simply write
this letter to save you being humiliated and pointed out
as ‘one of the biggest fools in seven states.’ But do as
you like about it, for when you get this letter me, Oray
and the assayer will be in Canada spending your money
for wine and women, having a good time generally.
Now, don’t get a foolish idea into your head or be
advised by any of your friends to try to get us, for you
will only be throwing away your money, as we know
exactly how to take care of ourselves, and always have
our future mapped out plain and make no mistakes in

our movements, and to convince you of this fact, I will
simply say that you are the eighty-seventh man we have
beaten in your own state, and three of them lived in
your own county. Should you, after studying this over
carefully, come to the conclusion that you would like to
get even, we will arrange it so as to communicate with
you, suffice to say all you will have to do is to give us
the name and address of some one whom you know to
have plenty of money, and we will give you one-fourth
of what he loses, and will possibly do a little better. It
will depend somewhat on the surroundings.
Now, I am satisfied that if you will take a reasonable
view of this matter, it will be to your future interest later
on, so by taking my advice you will in all probability
profit by it in the future. This is all.
Oray says you are a good man, and he likes you, and
says, good-bye,
“I am ever,
“RUBE.”
P. S.—You can fool all the people some of the time

and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool
all the people all the time.
THE STORY OF THE OVER-ISSUE.
SIMILAR TO GREEN GOODS.

The method pursued is this: You approach a man in
any way, in order to make his acquaintance; you are
with him a few days and are very liberal. Every time you
go in a saloon you ask him to have a drink or cigar, and
in paying for it change a five-dollar bill, always new
money. Every dollar of the money is National Bank
money and good. The man will finally get suspicious
and you will note the suspicion, and you call him off
quietly and make him pledge his word that if you tell
him something he will never broach it or divulge it to a
soul. He readily promises.
Now, of course, you will pretend that he has done
you an imaginary favor. You tell him that you are
making one to two hundred dollars a day and that you
are going to tell him how to make plenty of money; that
you know where there is a man that will sell you money
which is termed or called “over-issue,” but is genuine
money printed from the same plates that good money
is. The only difference is this: that there may be a
hundred bills of the same number, where there should
be one of each number.
I show him four bills, all of the same number, of a
National Bank, which you can get at any bank, usually
in sheets, not cut apart. Those bills are all the same
number, with the series A, B, C and D, which a great
many people do not know. The money looks suspicious
to the man, but you allow him to take twenty-five or
thirty bills, or you go to the bank with him and change
it, and do that from one bank to the other all over the
city. You finally satisfy him that the money is genuine
that you are using. Then you explain to him that he can
buy the money with the understanding that he does not
pay one five-cent piece of the money out of his pocket
until he takes it to the bank, asks the banker to
examine it, and the banker pronounces the money
genuine. Then he pays his money. He is supposed to
pay thirty cents on the dollar for this money. That is the
“over-issue.”
Now, this is where he gets skinned. Two hours before
you are to meet the man to buy the money, you ask him
if he is prepared. He says, “Yes, I have got the money.”
“Well, now, I want you to put this money in an
envelope.” You ask him to do that and also ask him to
write on the back of the envelope the word “Deeds,” as
the agent is doing a great deal of business with, the
different men in the bank and the banker may become
suspicious, and by doing that he is supposed to be
buying land. You have him put it in an envelope in a
place as conspicuous as the writing room at the Palmer
House or any large hotel.
You have a newspaper lying on this writing desk. In
the folds of that paper you have a dummy, or an
envelope filled with paper. When he puts the money in
his package, you reach and take it out of his hand
before he has time to think and say, “Excuse me, I will
O.K. it for you.” You put the O.K. on the envelope, reach
over, and look for a blotter; there is none in sight; you
put the envelope in the folds of the paper, blotting it, lift
up another fold of the paper, take out the dummy and
hand it to him and say, “Now, come on with me; we will
go down and see the man.” You send him ahead of you
and, when he gets out of the office, you take the package
of his money left in the newspaper and put it in your

pocket.
You go down to the bank, but it is always a few
minutes too late to get in the bank, and of course, you
cannot do business that day. You make any excuse that
evening and leave him, and have a chance to get
thousands of miles away from him before he discovers
your absence. The next morning, he naturally asks for
this money. You have made him sign a fictitious name
at the hotel. Then you make him sign an agreement
with the imaginary man, who is selling the green goods,
never to divulge the party from whom he bought these
goods, and afterwards insert the word “green;” also
never to dispose of any of the money except in certain
districts mentioned in the agreement, which is signed,
the same as in the hotel, with a fictitious name. In the
package of paper that he gets, you enclose a letter.
When he reads it, he is satisfied to go home and say
nothing.
GREEN GOODS EXPOSED.

Now, the green goods business you have often seen
mentioned in the newspapers, but never mentioned
right, and we now give you the facts. The first thing in
the green goods business is to send out a mail of about
100,000 letters. They get names from firms who do that
business, at a cent apiece, of business men through the
country. In the first letter they explain about the money,
and in case you would like to invest they give you a
name to telegraph to. They go to some town near where
they are working and they arrange with a telegraph
operator that should any telegram come for John Doe it
shall be held until he calls, but they tell him that every
telegram he gets he must sit down and write in cipher,
which they furnish him, the contents of those messages

to the city they are doing business in, but to keep the
telegrams there, so the telegraph company cannot hold
him responsible and the law cannot touch him.
As soon as the green goods men get the victim’s first
letter they write and tell him where to come (some hotel,
say, in Chicago) and register the name agreed upon.
When he leaves home, he sends his first telegram
(apples being the password) to Oshkosh (or any town
agreed upon), saying, “Have shipped apples to-day.” In
the second telegram “The apples will reach Oshkosh to-
morrow.” (In reality he means Chicago.) He is cautioned
to talk to no one unless he is accosted by the name
registered at the hotel, and the steerer mentions, “Mr.
Jones, I believe; I see you have arrived with your
apples,” and shows the victim the two telegrams which
he has already sent. Finds out that he is prepared and
has the money with him, and takes him to a house in a
secluded spot, which is shadowed by a number of men.
There they show him a trunk full of money, which is all
genuine. They sell him the money for thirty cents on the
dollar. They have got a satchel, which they put on the
desk in front of him, and in that satchel, they place the
amount that he wants to buy. They sell it with the
understanding that he is to ship that money by express
to his home, alleging as a reason that he might try to
spend some of the money in the city, which would be a
violation of his agreement.
After the money is counted out, the satchel is sealed
up and set on a desk within reaching distance of the
victim. They ask him to sign a paper and they raise up
the desk lid, which brings the lid of the desk between
the victim and the money, and while it is in that
position, a panel in the wall is opened and the valise is
changed for a dummy. He takes it in his own hands,

walks down to the express office and ships it away. That
is the way the green goods business is worked.
EXPOSÉ OF BUNKO, OR CONFIDENCE.

A merchant from a country town strolls down the
street in a large city. He is accosted by a stranger, who
says: “How do you do, Mr. Jones.” The merchant says:
“You are mistaken in the man; my name is Williams.”
“Is that so? Aren’t you from Madison?” “No, sir; I am
from Oshkosh.” “Oh, excuse me, I made a mistake.”
The stranger, who is, of course, a confidence man,
walks down the street, meets his partner and tells him
that the man’s name is Williams and that he is from
Oshkosh, Wisconsin. His partner takes a bank reporter
out of his pocket, finds the name of a prominent banker
in Oshkosh, and about ten minutes afterwards meets
his man and says: “How do you do, Mr. Williams.” He
shakes hands, and adds: “I guess you don’t remember
me. I was quite a boy when I left home. My name is so
and so. My uncle there is the banker, so and so. I have
been away to Yale for the last three or four years.” Of
course, the merchant is satisfied the man is all right
and they walk around town together.
Finally the supposed “nephew” says to the
merchant: “When will I see you again? I have to go and
attend to a little business, or, if you are not too busy,
would you mind walking down about a block with me,
and then we will go around together.” He walks him
down, and as he is walking along; he tells the merchant
that he has invested a little money in a lottery drawing
and he wants to see what luck he has had. He goes up
in a room, throws down a ticket and says: “I would like
to see what I have drawn.” The lottery agent looks over
a list and tells him he has drawn $500, and pays him
the money and also hands him two tickets, which are
for a special drawing, and he gives one to his friend, the
merchant, and keeps one.
He starts out, and as he starts out he turns around
and asks the agent when the drawing will come off on
these two tickets. The agent says that those tickets are
for a special drawing which can be had at any time, and
says: “You can see now what you draw.” The lottery
agent takes out forty-eight tickets, consisting of eight
sets, of six each, each set being numbered from one to
six. They both draw, and draw what is termed a
conditional prize of $500 each, but they are asked to
show the amount of their assessment, which is fifty
cents on the dollar of the amount that they draw, which
gives them four more draws. If a man has money in the
bank or anywhere, they keep urging him, explaining at
the same time that there is only one chance in ten
thousand for him to lose, that is, if he draws eight aces
or ones. The tickets are turned over and shuffled in his
presence and he draws out eight of them. Those eight
tickets are changed on him by a sleight-of-hand
movement, and when they are turned over, they are
found to be eight aces, and he loses his money. The
steerer, of course, agrees to make this money good,
provided the victim won’t say anything to his uncle
about it. The merchant goes home expecting to get his
money, but never sees the nephew or his money again.
That is bunco.
SHORT CHANGE.
Short change is practiced on trains, fair grounds
and with circuses. On the train a man will sit down
talking to you, making himself known and agreeable to
you. Presently his partner will come along and ask if
you can accommodate him with some large bills for
small bills, as he wants to send some money in an
envelope and does not like to put a lot of small bills in.
Of course, his partner has not got large bills, but he
refers him to the gentleman sitting with him.
Of course, the gentleman wants to be obliging and
he takes his money out. He has got two or three
hundred dollars and they get hold of it and are going to
give him small bills for those large bills. They take that
money and say: “Excuse me, maybe you don’t want it
all in small bills; you can take back two hundred dollars
of it and I will give you one hundred dollars in small
bills.” They hand his two hundred dollars back, and
they usually take about half of it in counting it by a
sleight-of-hand movement. Then they will give him the
right change for the money left. This applies to any
amount of money and applies to any place. Circus or
fair ground the same way.
In circuses they may say to a very old gentleman that
they will pass him in for half fare, providing he will
accommodate them with a large bill for some of the
silver they have, a five or a ten. The old gentleman
wants to accommodate them because he is saving
twenty-five cents. He takes his money out, hands it to
them, and he usually gets about four one-dollar bills
back for twenty-five or thirty dollars.
THREE CARD MONTE.

—
THE INTRODUCTION AND STORY.

The confederate of the three card monte player on a
train sits in a seat with the victim, and, of course,
makes himself known in a way. Presently an old farmer-
looking man comes along and, addressing them, asks
for “the captain of the cayrs.”
Capper: “You mean the conductor. What do you
want with him?”
Monte Player: “I want to buy some tobaccy.”
Capper: “The conductor don’t sell tobacco.”
Monte Player: “Well, I thought mebbe he might stop
the cayrs long enough fur me to git off and git some.
They do it down in the country where I come from.”
Capper: “What part of the country are you from?”
Monte Player: “I am from Greenup County,
Kentucky, Greenupsburg, on the Big Sandy River,
about eleven miles from Crab Orchard Gap. I expect you
Yankees were all down there during the war. I knowed
there wasn’t any honest Yankees before they come and
I took all the stock and drove them over in the
mountains except old Jule and the big mare and some
of the colts that we couldn’t drive away, and they even
stole them. They took the beehives and turned them
upside down, and strewed the hay all over pap’s
barnyard.”
Capper: “You don’t think very well of the Yankee
folks, then? How do you like them up in this country?”
Monte Player: “Don’t like them at all. Was up here in

Chicago the other day, going down a big, wide street
they call State street. I see a sign says ‘musements
inside. I got inside and I found a great, big liquor tavern.
There was a fellow in there with a great, big whirleygig
with a lot of shingles with numbers on them.”
Capper: “You mean a fortune wheel with a lot of
paddles?”
Monte Player: “I got to guessing around there with
him and he guessed me out of nigh onto a hundred
dollars.”
Capper: “He was a pretty smart fellow, wasn’t he?”
Monte Player: “No, he wasn’t smart at all. There was
a fellow there in the back room, the smartest fellow I
ever seed in my life, had a lot of numbers and eagles
and birds, and he was guessing back there with a crowd
of fellows and they all had high hats on. I got to
guessing with them, too, and every time they would
guess, they’d gain, and every time I would guess, I’d
lose.”
Capper (to the victim): “He has been fleeced by
sharpers—Say, my friend, don’t you know that you have
been swindled; you have been among a lot of sharpers?
How much did they beat you out of, about?”
Monte Player: “Oh, nigh onto a thousand dollars.”
Capper: “Well, they must have got all you had?”
Monte Player: “Oh, no; I’ve got pretty nigh onto nine
thousand dollars left. I’ll show it to you.” (Takes out a
large roll of money that looks like thousands of dollars.)
Capper: “Look here, old man, let me give you some
good advice. Mr. Jones here and myself are perfect
gentlemen, but don’t you know there are people here on
this train that, if they knew that you had that amount
of money on you, would not hesitate to rob you and take

it away from you? You take my advice and don’t show
that money to anybody; and as soon as you get home,
go and put it in the bank.”
Monte Player: “I guess I can about take care of
myself. I ain’t scared of anybody takin’ nothin’ away
from me. I am going to make a whole lot of money myself
as soon as I get back to Kantucky. I got some of the
fellow’s numbers. I gave him fifty dollars for them, and
he showed me how to do it. When I go back there to
Kantucky, Jube Wilkins comes around to see my sister
Luce pretty nigh every Sunday, and I am going to slick
him out of his saddle and make him ride home
bareback.
Capper: “I don’t understand what you mean. How
you lose your money with numbers and lose so much?
Where are the numbers?”
Monte Player: “You men won’t take them away from
me if I show them to you?” (Takes out three cards,
which are three card monte tickets.)
Capper: “Why, that’s three card monte. I don’t see
how you lost any money on those numbers and tickets.
Show us how you did it.”
Monte Player: “Well, you will have to fetch me in a
table.”
Capper: “We can’t get a table on the train here. Can’t
you show us on your lap? Put your overcoat on your lap
and show us that way.”
Monte Player: “You men won’t laugh at me? This is
the first time ever I tried it.”
Capper: “No, no; we won’t laugh at you.”
Monte Player: “Now, he said the old lady card would
gain for me, but the two eagle birds would gain for him.
Now, I am going to mix them around. Now, could you

tell which one it was?”
Capper (To the victim in a whisper): “I will have a
little fun out of him and I will guess the wrong one.”
The capper guesses the wrong one. The player
bursts out laughing and says: “You durned old Yankee
fool, let’s you and I play for a bill.”
The capper says in a whisper to the victim: “I will
turn the corner up on one and beat him out of about a
hundred dollars and give it back to him, provided he
will tear the cards up. Don’t you think that would be a
good idea?”
The victim says yes, so the capper wins fifty dollars
twice. The player takes the cards and puts them in his
pocket.
Capper: “Say, my friend, I didn’t play with you in
earnest. I was only fooling. You take your money back.
I have got plenty of money. I don’t need your money.
Tear those cards up. You will lose every cent you’ve got
if you go around the right party. They will take it all
away from you. I don’t want your money. Mr. Jones and
I would not take it away from you.”
Monte Player: “Lookee here, we don’t do business
that way down in Kantucky. If you gained my money,
you keep it. If I would have gained your money, I would
have kept it and you would never have got a cent of it,
unless you would have killed me.”
Capper: “Well, then, of course. If you would have
kept my money, I will keep yours. You don’t want to play
any more, do you?”
Monte Player: “No, I won’t play no more for money.”
Capper: “Just show us for fun, then.”
Monte Player: “Well, I will show you, for fun. Now, I

will mix them around. Now, which one do you say?”
Capper (whispering to the victim): “Pick up the
wrong one and have a little fun out of him.” (The victim
picks up the wrong card.)
Monte Player: “You don’t know as much as this other
fellow. I wouldn’t be scared to bet with you a thousand
dollars that you couldn’t tell where it was.”
Capper (whispering to the victim): “I see it didn’t do
any good to win that money from him at all. I thought
he would quit. He wants to bet already and you can beat
him easily.” (To the player): “My friend, I will tell you
what we will do. Mr. Jones will bet you a thousand
dollars if you will agree, in case you lose your money,
that you will tear those cards up right away and never
try it any more. Will you do that?”
Monte Player: “I will.”
The player turns to spit, and as he does so, the
capper shows the victim the face of the card and says:
“Now, you have got a sure thing.” The victim, of course,
thinks that he has, and as he is going to do a good turn
by winning this money, he puts his thousand dollars
up. The player turns the three cards over and says: “If
you get the old lady, you win, and if you get either one
of the other two, you lose.”
The cards are manipulated then, and the victim
loses his thousand dollars. The capper says: “Just wait
a minute and I will get you even, but just watch it now.
You got so excited the last time and you did not notice
the corner like I told you.”
He puts up $100, and the victim turns over the right
card and wins $100; plays the $200, and wins $200
more; plays the $400 and wins $400. That is $800 in
all. The capper says: “I am going to quit you now. Mr.

Jones and I are even. How much are you loser, Mr.
Jones?”
Mr. Jones: “Why, a thousand dollars.”
Capper: “Hold on, I haven’t got enough yet, if that is
the case. I will play with you a little more.”
Monte Player: “No, I won’t play any more.”
Capper: “Why, give us a chance to get even. We are
still out $200.”
Monte Player: “I will tell you what I will do with you.
I’ll do that just once more, and make one big bet and
then quit. I’ll bet you the whole $800.”
The victim bets the $800, and, of course, loses. The
player gets up to leave and he leaves a pocketbook there
that is supposed to contain $2,000 that he has already
shown to the other men. The minute he leaves, the
capper grabs the pocketbook and shoves it down in the
boot-leg of the victim, or in his breast, and tells him to
go ahead in the car and sit down quiet and not say a
word. Presently the player comes through, looking
everywhere, and he says to the capper:
“Mister, was you sitting in the seat back there with
me, just now, when I was guessing?”
Capper: “No, sir; I never saw you before in my life.”
Monte Player (to the victim): “Was you down there,
Mister?”
Mr. Jones: “No, sir; what is the matter?”
Monte Player: “I have just lost a pocketbook with
$2,000 in it. I was in the closet a few minutes ago. I
‘spect I just about dropped it in there and it is gone. I
don’t care very much, anyway.”
Of course, the victim thinks he has got $2,000 for

his $1,000. He sits there in the seat and is supposed to
go to sleep. The monte player and his partner are off the
train and the train a hundred miles away before the
victim discovers that he has got nothing in the pocket
book.
That is the story of three card monte.
SHELL GAME AT CIRCUSES OR AT FAIRS.

The capper for shells goes and hires about six
country fellows whom everyone knows, and educates
them for their parts. When the man opens the shells at
the fair ground or circus, these men surround him with
the capper. The capper stands behind them, slipping
money in their hands and whispering to them and
telling them which shell to bet on. Of course, they win
and lose all the time, making it look ridiculous to the
outsiders, seeing how foolish they are that they cannot
tell where the ball is, when they can see it easily
themselves. It is not long before they get interested and
have got their money out betting it. The shells are run
there strictly on the betting principle.
Now, the way they run shells around big cities is
this: A capper or steerer will meet a victim and tell him
about the big explosion down on the Illinois Central
tracks. They take him down there, and while they are
looking for the explosion, they come across a man with
three shells and a board, with a little ball under it. They
have got him in a secluded spot, the board is shown him
and they try to get the man to bet on the game. If he
won’t bet, they hit him over the head with the board and
tell him he loses, take what money he has got, leaving
the shell board and the shells laying beside him. He is
unconscious. The police find him there, he starts to tell
the policeman that he has been robbed, and the

policeman says: “I understand how you were robbed,
come on with me.” He goes up to the station and, of
course, the policeman tells the officials that the man
has been robbed on the shell game down there, when,
in reality, they were garroters and not shell men. Of
course, he does not get the sympathy he would get if
they knew he had actually been robbed. They go out
and look for shell men then, but real shell men do not
get money that way. The men who do that are nothing
but garroters. That is the way shells are run around
Chicago and other big cities.
RACE TRACK OR WIRE-TAPPING GAG.

There are usually three or four men interested in
this work—two operators, one at one end of a private
wire, and one at the other. One end of the wire is near
a race track, where the winner can be signaled by a man
on the race track making a certain sign, which this man
can telegraph to his confederate, four miles away, or
any distance.
They take the victim and tell him they have tapped
the wire, selecting some man that has got plenty of
money and is used to playing the races. They take him
into a private room and explain to him, now we will tell
you the winners as fast as they come in right here. Of
course, the man near the track telegraphs over this
private wire the winners in the races. The man,
naturally thinking that everything is all right and that
they are tapping the wire, comes into the scheme and
puts up the money to bet. They usually get three or four
hundred dollars out of the man to send a line-man away
who has been discovered, and they tell him there is
liable to be some trouble, and, under different
pretenses, they get money out of him, first one way and
then another.
Then, when he goes to the race track to bet, they
take a chance of guessing the winner, not knowing
anything about it at all. They go to work and get the
man to bet a thousand or two thousand dollars, or any
amount of money, on a favorite which they usually take.
If he loses, they have made a mistake. If he wins, the
wire-tappers get three-fourths. They don’t tap any wire
at all. It is merely a fake.
SPECTACLE FRAUD.
At the time of the Pure Food Exhibit here in Chicago,
in February, there was a man who gave $100 a week for
the privilege of selling spectacles there. The way they
defrauded the public was to accost any old gentleman
and ask him to come over and allow him to test his eyes.
In order to test his eyes, he had to take his spectacles
off. They used a preparation by which they could touch
one of the glasses and dim it to a certain extent. They
tested his eyes, and explained to him that one eye was
stronger than the other; that his glasses would ruin his
eyes. Then they would place his spectacles back on his
eyes and make him shut one eye and read with one
shut, and then shut that eye and read with the other.
They claimed that he needed a stronger glass in one
side. So they would take one glass out for him to try
another. They placed another glass in there, which was
really the same glass that he had had, only it was
cleaned up. Then they told him to look and see if he
could see any better. They would show him a book with
reprint and ask him to read it, which was brevier type.
Then they would take a pair of their own specks and tell
him to try those on, and while he was trying them on,
they changed the page of the book, by a motion of the

hand, showing the print of small pica, and asked him if
he could read any plainer with those. The matter was
the same on both pages. Of course he could see much
better and they would tell him that those glasses were
made of pebble glass, would last for a lifetime, and rest
his eyes much better, and, not knowing that they had
changed the print on him, he would naturally ask the
price, and they get from eight to fifteen dollars a pair for
spectacles worth forty or fifty cents.
EXPOSURE OF CROOKED GAMBLING TOOLS TO

BEAT THE HOUSE.
There are faro bank boxes which have a needle tell.
Those boxes are arranged so the cards can be shuffled
on the square, not sanded at all, but so many of them
are cut narrower, say the four aces, the four treys, four
fives and four nines. Should any of those cards come in
contact with that needle, the needle goes in and
registers, and tells you if a card is four cards down or
five cards down. If it registers four times the card is to
lose. If it registers five times it is to win. They use those
boxes where they get a man interested with them to put
up money for gambling, say half, and let him deal
himself, and the money can be won on the outside. If
he is a smart man, he cannot see that needle register,
while the man playing on the outside can.
There are also boxes that are called two card boxes,
in which they use cards and sand them, as it is called.
A man can deal himself, and they can put in a deck of
cards on him that are sanded, and often when he goes
to push out a card it will balk. The players take
advantage of it and say, just wait a minute, and put any
amount of money on the card, knowing exactly what the
card is the next time. That is for the outside to beat the
inside.
Then they use an apparatus they call a horn, which
is a powerful glass they put in the sleeve. They can sit
on the side of the box where the back of the cards show
and the glass is so powerful that it reflects those cards
and the cards look as thick as soda crackers. They beat
the inside in this way. They get into a man’s room, or in
his house, or safe, and get his cards and fix the edges
of so many, and a man on the outside, who is supposed
to be playing one check at a time, looks down his sleeve
and sees every card plainly, and he will signal to the
man in front of him how the cards are coming, and they
can win a bank roll out quickly.
Now for the inside to take advantage of the outside.
They can use a two-card box. They can take two cards
any time it is necessary, and, should the victim keep
the cases himself, they use a put-back plate in the box,
and with a slight movement of the hand they place the
cards back in the box again, and the man watching
them could not see it.
They also use what is called a high layout. Any time
you see a layout as high as the box you can look out for
it. By pressing a spring under the table, a card can go
from the box into the layout, and when they want it
back again, they can pass the card back from the layout
into the box.
EXPOSÉ OF ROULETTE WHEELS.

The inside can bore a small hole through the rim of
the wheel, place a needle similar to a ladies’ hat pin,
with a piece of rubber back at the head of the pin, which
makes the pin just flush with the inside of the rim
where the marble runs around. The check rack comes
up against the head of the pin. By pressing the body
against the check rack, they can force that pin or needle
out a sixteenth of an inch. When the marble comes
around, they can throw it in a space of about eight or
ten inches any time they want to. They do not try to
beat red or black, but can throw it off of any numbers,
or half the wheel, any time they want to.
They can also fix the wheel where a man is playing
any favorite, or even red or black. While they turn, they
palm in or put in a piece of rubber in one of the spaces,
and any time the marble hits there, it will bounce out
again. Or they can put a plug, a piece of patent leather,
which, of course, is black, into any of the black
numbers, which will come flush up with the top of the
spaces on the wheel, and it is impossible for the ball to
get in the space. It will roll out into some other number,
as the wheel is running very fast.
HAZARD.
In hazard, they use a cup which is closed up similar
to a birdcage, about four inches in diameter and about
ten inches high. They reverse one side or the other of
that cup, and the bets are to be made before they turn
the cup over; there being a screen used for the covering
of the cup. The table where they shake on is fixed with
an electric battery. They can make these dice come high
or low, as they want to. Then they can use square dice
and a square cup and throw them through a cone,
holding out one or two, it being impossible for anyone

to see them do it.
CRAPS.
In different ways you can be cheated at craps. They
use what is called loaded dice or shaped dice. A loaded
dice can easily be told by placing it at its widest
diameter between the index finger and thumb, revolving
slowly around, stopping about a quarter each time,
when the dice will revolve back, the heavy side going to
the bottom. This is a positive test; anyone can do it, and
it never fails.
In shaped dice, where dice are made flat from the
ace to the six, you can easily tell them by placing the
dice on a hard, smooth surface, with one of them with
the five up, the other with the six up, and you will
readily see a sixteenth of an inch difference in the height
of the two dice, the five dice being the highest. There are
also dice that are made oval on the deuce, trey, four and
five, and flat on the ace-six, which makes the dice favor
two, seven and twelve. This is very strong for the game.
They can do this with transparent dice, or any kind.
There are dice which are transparent which you can
look through, where the spots are bored unusually deep
and filled up with a celluloid plug, even with the surface
of the dice. Those dice can be tested in the same way as
the loaded dice I have mentioned. They can be loaded
in one of those plugs.
Now, there are dice games which will hand you out
a box of dice and allow you to select any two you want
to. You can take the dice, test them, and they will be
square. You roll them out, the dealer picks them up,
changes them, and throws them back to you. You have
got a loaded pair or a shaped pair. They can beat you
that way, so I would advise you to test the dice at any

time.
They can have cappers around the table who can roll
the dice, and the dice will revolve twenty-five times
across the table and keep off of almost any point. If they
placed the two treys together, the fours are opposite.
They roll over like a wheel, making it impossible to
throw nine or five, but you can throw seven or craps
about four times out of five, which is in favor of the
game. They usually hire men that can do that to work
around crap games where they are forced to use square
dice. I would advise any player, if he will play craps, not
to bet on anyone else’s rolling.
They can place the deuce against the trey and roll
them out straight, and it makes an equal chance to
throw craps against a natural; one way for three, one
way for twelve, one way for two, two ways for seven,
which would be ace-six, and one way for eleven. If the
dice are thrown on the square, the player has eight
ways to make naturals and only four ways to make
craps, which gives him one hundred per cent the best
of it, which is twelve possible ways. There are thirty-six
possible ways you can throw two dice in craps—eight
ways for natural, four ways for craps, and twenty-four
ways for points. Twelve times in thirty-six or once in
three, the player will have one hundred per cent the
best of it, eight to four. Twenty-four times in thirty-six,
or twice in three, the dealer will have fifty per cent the
best of the player. The twenty-four ways for points are
divided by the number of points, that is, six. Six into
twenty-four goes four times. It is an average of four
times for you, while the game has six ways to make
seven against the four ways for your point. Twice in
three times they have fifty per cent, or six to four,

making it an even thing in the crap game.
POKER GAMES.
In poker games I could mention one hundred
different ways a person can be cheated. The most expert
work and the most difficult to see through is shuffling
up a hand behind the dealer, which you are supposed
to cut after. A man can hold out a set of threes, and
when the deck is passed over to him to shuffle up, he
shuffles up the set of threes, and when you are cutting
the cards, you pass them back to the dealer. Should the
man to the cheater’s left be in with him, he can simply
leave the set of threes on top of the deck, the dealer
shuffling them without disturbing them and handing
them over to be cut. They can be shuffled up that way.
I myself can shut my eyes and shuffle up a set of
threes—five, six, seven or eight-handed—with two riffles
of the cards. I do that in my exhibition.
They also deal what is called seconds, taking the
second card, the top card being in motion all the time,
and, in dealing fast, it is impossible to tell whether they
have taken the first or second card.
They also prick cards, making a very slight dent with
the finger nail, so a man with a sensitive thumb can feel
the dent and hold that card back as long as he wants
to till he helps everybody, and then help his own hand.
There are people who are one-armed who can cheat
you by dealing around with one hand, it being
impossible for anybody to discover anything wrong, it
matters not how close they watch to see whether he
gives you the top card or the bottom card. It is
necessary for them to have somebody to their right who
will cut the cards, leaving the threes on the bottom, or

two sets of threes. When you see a man dealing with
one hand, I would advise everybody that wants to
protect themselves to shuffle the cards after him, or see
that they are shuffled squarely. That work is done by a
great many people, principally by one-armed men.
There are bottom dealers who can deal a hand from
the bottom with both hands, but they have got to hold
the pack unnatural, which you can see. In order to
protect yourself in playing poker, see that a man holds
the pack naturally, where you can look on the top of the
deck and see that the cards come off the top, it not being
necessary to have a man deal so fast.
In playing marked cards, a man does not necessarily
have to look at the deck. He can look at the cards when
they go over to the player or in front of the player. If you
will watch his eyes, when you are suspicious that a man
is playing marked cards, you can certainly tell it.
There are a number of ways cards can be marked.
They can be stamped, they can be scratched, and there
can be shade work. The shade work is where they shade
certain places on a card with a liquid preparation. Then
there is work called white work that they usually apply
with a brush all over the card, except one place. The
combination can be all over the card. It is as big as the
end of your thumb, and you can see it ten feet away and
tell it easy. There are also cards which are called edge
work. That means that a card is not stamped on the
back exactly in the middle of the card, that the border
can be a sixteenth of an inch or a thirtieth of an inch
more on one side than the other. That means one card.
They can be a little narrower at the bottom than at the
top, or the bottom to the left for one combination, or top
to the right, or top to the left or bottom to the right. The
cards can be stamped bias. That means some

combination or some card. You can look all over the
card and you cannot see a mark, but see if the border
is perfect. That is considered the latest work out.
There are also sleeve holdouts, a piece of machinery
that runs up the sleeves around the chest. They can
pass a card down in your hand or back again by
expanding the chest. There are also vest holdouts,
which are used the same way.
There are also poker tables manufactured that have
got a holdout in the table, used principally in hotels,
where they beat traveling men or anyone else. By
moving the foot, they can force a hand up through the
table and let the other hand go back in the table. These
tables cost about $300. There was one of them taken by
the police on Wabash Avenue a few years ago and
exposed in the police court.
A TIP, OR GIVING THE VICTIM THE BEST OF IT.

A man will approach the victim and say that he is
working with a man who is an insurance agent and he
is playing cards with him, cheating people. Now, he
wants to double-cross or throw his partner off for a lot
of money by tipping his hand to the victim. He tells him
he will stake him with $200, take $200 himself, and the
man that he wants to beat, who is really a sharper, and
his partner, will sit in the game. The capper says to the
victim: “I will lose my $200 to you, then I will get behind
the old man and, with my fingers, signal to you what he
has got in his hand.” This the capper does all the time,
telling him the right hand. But the old sharper has a
deck of marked cards and knows all the time what the
victim has.
The victim has been told that the old man is a high
better and a bluffer. Of course, the victim won’t be
bluffed out when the capper signals to him that the old
gentleman has got nothing. Yet the old man can have
an ace-king high, without a pair, against the victim’s
king-queen high. He allows the victim to bluff him out
after starting in to bluff himself. He is bluffed out a few
times, he gets the victim started, and he gets that $400.
In that he has got out, and, of course, playing open
poker, that is the understanding, sends him after
money, or, if he has checks, he will draw checks for any
amount of money which he will lose, trying to drive the
old man out. The victim will often lose thousands of
dollars on a hand of that kind.
My advice to people is, not to play poker; but, if you
must play, the following “sure-to-win” hints may come
in useful:
“The whole object of poker is to save your own money
and to secure some one else’s. Win cash and lose on
credit is a good general rule.
“Therefore, buy only one-half as many chips as you
think you will need. When they are gone, owe.
“Ante only when you are reminded of it. You’ll make
a chip or two in an evening by following this advice.
“If anyone has to owe for chips, make sure that
you’re the first to do so. Then bet against the ready-
money players.
“Get a look at the bottom card if you can. It may alter
your draw materially.
“Always ‘salt away’ checks or chips in your pockets.
No one then can tell how you stand, and you can be
‘shy’ from time to time.
“Watch the discards carefully, but use them

sparingly. Excess in these luxuries may beget trouble.
“Sell your chips while you have plenty of them, but
only for cash.
“If there is a kitty, take a few extra cigars. If you don’t
smoke yourself, ‘there are others.’
“At the close of the game, halve your winnings and
multiply your losses in discussing how you stand. All
good players do this.
“Never pay any hold-over debts at the beginning of a
new game. Mercenary men have been known to accept
money so offered and refuse to play.
“When luck is against you, call for a new pack,
grumble and claim more trouble than ever a mortal had
before.
“When you are winning, look at your watch all the
time with the remark: ‘I’ve got to go pretty soon.’ Go
when you get good and ready.”
By following these instructions, you will show an
intimate knowledge of the game, even if you do not win.
HOW MEN ARE GIVEN THE BEST OF IT AT FARO

BANK AND MADE TO LOSE THEIR MONEY.
A sharper approaches a business man and tells him
how he can make some money; that he has a friend
dealing faro bank in a big gambling house; that his
friend will tell him the last turn if this man will go up
and play (it not being policy for the sharper to play), but
he must go up and buy quite a lot of checks and play
liberally all through the deal, which is likely to break
even one way or the other, in order to make the thing
look natural, and then bet the limit on the last turn,
and he will always tell the victim how it is coming. Of

course, it looks all right to the victim and he goes up to
play. Instead of dealing square faro bank, they are
dealing brace faro bank. They win so much from him
before it comes to the last turn, that he cannot win one-
fourth of the money by playing the limit that he has
already lost the fore part of the deal. Beware of such
propositions.
THE BEST OF IT IN ROULETTE.

A man will come to you and say that he has a friend
dealing roulette in a gambling house and he has fixed
two extra eights on the wheel, which makes three
eights. Of course, you are supposed to have away the
best of it. You go up there and you play on the black
and on the even and on the low and the first twelve and
the eight. They have, in the spaces where the eights are,
plugs of leather, which is patent leather finish, which
fills up those spaces in the eights, it being impossible
for the ball to get in number eight at all, and it won’t be
long before the victim has lost all his money, as he
thinks he has got the best of it and commences to play
high. So beware of such propositions as that.
BIG POKER HANDS ON TRAINS.

There are often men on trains going through the
cars, asking first one and then another of the
passengers if they would mind joining in a little game of
euchre. It is not a bad idea to be on your guard, because
a great many times they are looking for a victim. You sit
down and commence playing euchre. There are usually
three in the party, the victim making the fourth man.
About the second hand that is dealt out, two of the
confidence men will commence making remarks to one
another about having a pretty good poker hand. One of

them says: “I wouldn’t mind betting you the cigars on
the best poker hand.” Says the other: “I will bet you a
box of cigars.” “Well, we cannot get a box of cigars on
the train very well.” “Then I will bet you the price of a
box of cigars—five dollars.”
So he puts up the five dollars on three kings. The
other man, who has three queens, sees the five and
raises him ten. The man with three kings says: “You
bluff me out. That is good. I only had three kings.” Says
the other: “You have the best hand; I only had three
queens.” “If I had called you, I would have won, wouldn’t
I?” “Yes; but in poker, if you don’t call, you lose anything
you put in the pot.”
About the next hand, the victim will get an ace full
on kings. The player to his right will expose his hand,
in a careless manner apparently, showing three queens
and nothing more. The man to his left will say to the
victim that he has got a little poker hand. Naturally, the
victim, having a big hand, will want to bet five, so he
places up five dollars on his hand. The man to his left
does not expose his hand at all, but has four sevens. He
only sees the five dollars, and says: “What have you
got?” Before the victim can answer, the man to the
victim’s right says: “Hold on, I want to get in this. Can I
come in?” Of course, the victim, knowing that he only
has three queens, will naturally say: “I am satisfied.”
The man with the four sevens, who has not shown his
hand yet, is also satisfied.
So the man with the three queens raises it about fifty
dollars, and the victim, knowing that he has a cinch
against the three queens, is willing to back his
judgment for any amount, by taking advantage of
seeing into the man’s hand. The man to his left starts
to throw his hand up. The man to the right says: “Don’t
throw your hand up; wait until you see what this
gentleman does.” The victim, thinking the man who is
left is going to throw up his hand, and knowing he has
a positive cinch against the man with the three queens,
bets fifty or a hundred dollars more. Of course, the man
with the four sevens has not passed out. He studies
quite a while, and then says: “I believe I will call you,”
and he throws into the pot what is apparently the
amount of money necessary for a call, but there is really
five dollars too much. The man to the right calls his
attention to it, asking him if he raised it five dollars. He
says: “Well, as long as I have got five dollars up, let it
go.” “Well,” says the man with the three queens, “if that
is the case, then that gives me a chance to boost you
back again. I will raise you one hundred dollars.”
Of course, the victim will lose his money if he doesn’t
call that, and being satisfied that he has got the best
hand, even though he does not see the hand to his left,
places every dollar he has got up—watch, and
everything else—all on that hand. The man with the
four sevens then calls and raises the man with the three
queens say five hundred dollars back, and, to make it
look natural to the victim, the man to the victim’s right
says: “The gentleman here to my left (who, of course, is
the victim) has not got any more money, so you and I
will have to bet on the outside and let him have a sight
for that amount of money.”
Of course, there are a number of bets backward and
forward by the two parties, which make the victim’s
money look so small that he does not feel badly when
he loses, because he has got one of the confidence men
to console him, who has lost ten times as much when
the four sevens are shown down.
So I would advise anyone not to bet on a big poker

hand when playing euchre. They also have stud poker
that is worked about the same way.
TOP AND BOTTOM.

This game has been exposed by a number of
newspapers, but never correctly. A man is steered into
a saloon to take a drink with a confidence man, who
throws down a ten-dollar bill in payment for the drinks.
While the drinks are being ordered, a third man comes
in and also orders a drink and throws down a ten-dollar
bill. The bartender says: “Gentlemen, I cannot change
both bills, but if you gentlemen will shake dice to see
who pays for the drinks, then I won’t have to change
but one.”
Says the steerer: “Let the gentleman have a drink
with us.” “No,” says the capper, “I never drink with
anybody; but you have a drink with me.” “No,” says the
steerer, “I won’t do that; I will shake you the dice to see
who pays for the drinks.” All right, everybody is
satisfied.
When the dice are to be shaken out, the steerer says:
“How do you shake dice up in this country?” “Well,”
says the capper, “we shake poker dice.” The steerer
says: “I don’t understand that. I am used to shaking
over in Michigan three dice. You count the top side and
the bottom and add them up together, and the man who
guesses the farthest off pays for the drinks.” “Well,” says
the capper, “it is all the same to me. What do you
guess?” “What do you guess?” says the steerer to the
capper. “Well, I guess twenty-five.” “I will guess twenty-
one,” says the steerer. The dice are counted, top and
bottom, which is exactly twenty-one.
The capper says: “Excuse me just a minute,” and he

walks out the back door. While he is gone, the steerer
says to the victim: “Didn’t you know I had a sure thing
on that fellow? Why, you can’t shake those dice and
count the bottom and top that it won’t come twenty-
one. The ace is opposite the six, the deuce is opposite
the five, the trey is opposite the four, making seven on
both sides or twenty-one on the three dice.”
Pretty soon the capper comes back and says: “I want
to go you again, for the cigars.” The steerer says: “I will
tell you what I will do. I will bet you a box of cigars that
I can guess nearer than you can. Yes, I will do better
than that. I will bet you that my friend here can guess
the exact number on the top and bottom of those dice.”
Says the capper: “Do you mean to say that you can
tell how many bricks there are in this house, or how
many hairs in my head? I wouldn’t be scared to bet you
one hundred dollars that he couldn’t do it.” The steerer
says: “By George, we will go you the hundred.” The
victim places what money he has got up, thinking he
has got a sure thing.
The dice are thrown and uncovered, counting twelve
on top, an ace, five and six. He will push over the six to
him, telling him to count what is on the back, which is
one, making thirteen. Then he will pass over the middle
dice, which will be five on top and two on the bottom,
but as he is passing it over, he turns a four up, making
a trey on the bottom. Of course, the trey and thirteen
make sixteen. Then he passes the dice with the ace up
and the man turns up the dice and the six is on the
bottom, making twenty-two. Of course, the victim loses,
but the steerer blames him for not turning the dice half
around, claiming he turned it only a quarter around.
That is top and bottom, the correct way.
Now, there is another way they have of shaking

poker dice.
They steer a man into a saloon and are taking a
drink, when a third party comes up and says:
“Bartender, I will shake you dice for the drinks.” Says
the steerer: “I will shake you the dice. Why do you want
to shake the bartender?” “Well, he has got more liquor
than anybody else and can better afford to lose it.”
“Well, I will shake you the dice if you will include my
friend. He does not shake himself.”
He says all right, and of course he shakes the dice
and gets stuck for the drinks. Finally, they shake dice
for $5, the steerer winning the $5. Then they shake for
$5 more, and the steerer wins that $5.
The capper makes an excuse to go out, giving the
steerer a chance to talk to the victim, who explains:
“Now, you take $5, and I will take $5, and when he
comes back again, we will shake three-handed, but
don’t you shake for any more money than that $5. If
you should lose that, then quit, or I will give you more
money to play with. We have got two chances to his one,
and we can beat him out of a whole lot of money.” Of
course, that is all right and the victim is not going to
lose any of his own money, so he is not afraid to run a
risk with the other man’s money.
The barkeeper suggests that they go back in one of
the stalls and shake on a table there, so that they won’t
interfere with customers who are coming in. They go
back to the stall, go in the room, and they get to shaking
three-handed, the steerer winning almost every bet, as
he uses a box that is smooth inside and he can finger
the dice and throw anything he wants. The
understanding is, that if one tie, they all tie. Any time
the victim throws threes, any threes tie, or any fours tie.
If the victim throws threes, the capper throws about

fours, and then the steerer throws fours and ties the
capper. Of course, that is a jack-pot. They have got to
keep placing up. Finally, all the victim’s money is up,
and, of course, he being out of money, the steerer
commences counting his own money, being winner, to
divide up with the victim so he can play on.
The capper says: “I can’t stand that. It seems that
you two fellows are playing against me.” “No,” says the
steerer, “I never saw the gentleman before in my life.”
“Well, then, why do you want to lend him any money?”
“Can’t I loan him what I please?” “No, sir; not in this
game. You can give him anything you want after you go
out.” “Well,” says the steerer, “of course that is all right
then.” He says in a whisper to the victim: “You go ahead
and bet and I will divide with you as soon as we get
through playing.”
Of course, the victim takes out his pocketbook, puts
up a dollar and there is another tie. The assessment the
next time is $2. Of course, the steerer says: “Go ahead,
I have got plenty of money to make good whatever you
lose.” The victim places up two, finally four, and
continues until every dollar of his money is in the pot,
the steerer winning all the time, giving the victim
confidence in putting his own money up, knowing that
he will get back half the money that the steerer has,
which is more than he is loser. Then, when the victim
has got all of his money up, the capper and the steerer
get to shaking between themselves, and it is not long
before the steerer loses all the money he has got, the
victim’s money and all. Of course, all you have got to do
then is to pat the victim on the back and tell him you
have been very unlucky. That is the way poker dice is
played.
THE SOAP GAME, ROLLING UP SOAP PACKAGES

WITH TEN AND TWENTY DOLLAR BILLS.
A man will be folding up a number of bills and
dropping them in a satchel which is filled with packages
of soap done up in blue paper, then selecting out a
number of packages and offering them for sale. One of
them is supposed to contain $10, or at least a man will
see the fakir roll it up, drop it into the satchel right in
front of him, and he tells him to pick out any one he
wants to. He picks out one that he thinks the $10 is in,
and the soap man takes out two more packages and
wants to sell the three of them for $5. Of course, the
victim is a little shy. The soap man opens up the
package in front of him and shows him a ten-dollar bill.
Then he rolls up another ten-dollar bill and stirs it up
in a package and he picks out another package and
shows it very apparently in the man’s face—there is
nothing in the package—and says: “There is another ten
I will roll up.”
He rolls that ten up and he drops it down in the
corner with a mark, so that the victim can see it plainly.
Thinking he has got a sure thing, the victim picks up
that package, with two others, and buys it for $5,
getting nothing but three little pieces of soap which
possibly cost one cent. That is a full and correct
explanation of the soap game.
SPINDLE GAME.
There is a square board with a circle of nails about
twenty-four inches in diameter, with an arrow with a
quill on the end of it, and with money—ones, fives, tens
and twenties—around between those nails, about two-
thirds being blanks. They will charge a man fifty cents
for a roll. The spindle is arranged so that by pressing on
one corner of the square board, they can stop the arrow
anywhere they choose. That is worked with a spring,
and there are other spindles similar to this. They are on
a long table, with a layout six feet from the spindle or
the arrow, which is handled by electricity, the dealer
standing six feet away from the arrow. By pressing the
button on the cloth, they can keep that spindle or arrow
turning for a minute or two until they want it to stop,
and they take their hands off and it will stop.
BOOK-MAKERS’ WHEEL.
There are wheels which are called book-makers’
wheels, which are arranged with about fifty pins.
Between the pins there is money all around the wheel,
with a rubber ball that rolls around those pins on the
inside, which decides what a man will draw. Those
wheels are usually charged with electricity, so they can
keep that wheel moving, and the wheel moving of course
makes the ball move. By that means, they are able to
control that wheel and throw that ball off or on any
particular space.
POLICY.
They formerly used two wheels, the same as the
Louisiana State Lottery used, allowing boys to be
blindfolded and to reach in the wheels and take out
numbers, which were called out in the presence of
hundreds of people, and which were, and had to be, on
the square. As it was almost impossible to cheat anyone
that way, now they have adopted a Keno goose, with
marbles numbering from one to seventy-eight, or
whatever number they used that day. Now, I will show
whereby they could cheat all the players with these
marbles.
The marbles are flat on one side, with a number on

that side. They are placed in this goose, which is jug-
shaped, revolving around on an axis about the center of
it, taking the marbles out one at a time until they get
thirteen marbles. That is the drawing for that day.
Those marbles can be fixed in this way, by making
some marbles a fraction rounder than others. The
rounder the marble is, the quicker it will get to the
mouth of the goose. It is not necessary to have any load,
but they can easily have that, making the heavy
marbles fall to the mouth first.
The sheet writers come in with their books at least
thirty minutes before the drawing. They look over it and
know the numbers that could hurt them most. Those
numbers are selected out among the very flat ones and
dropped in the goose. They may possibly come out, but
the odds are greatly in favor of the other balls.
BUCKET SHOP OR TAPE GAME.

There are ways by which the proprietors of bucket
shops can regulate or control the ups and downs of the
market on their tape, which, they claim, is arranged the
day before, they not knowing or caring how it comes,
leaving the players to guess. The twelve and one-half
per cent that they take out of every deal is enough to
break anyone on the square, but they, not being
satisfied with the per cent, often substitute robbery
instead. They can have a man in the cellar,
manufacturing the market as they go along, and a
telephone running from the cashier to the man in the
cellar. The cashier speaks to the players, asking them
how much on such and such a way, every word being
heard plainly by the man in the cellar. Where a man
thinks that he can double up and beat it, all they have
to do is to send up the tape 10 or 12 ways against the

man, and he will lose thousands of dollars. That has
been practiced in St. Louis and exposed there by the
newspapers and police.
In my exhibitions through the country, I will
illustrate and expose all that I have described in this
book.
PER CENT OF ALL SQUARE GAMES

—
HAZARD.
There are 3 dice used, numbering from 1 to 6. There
are 216 possible ways for the 3 dice to come.
Game Pays. Exact Odds.

1 way for 3………….. 180 to 1 215 to 1
3 ways for 4………….. 60 to 1 71 to 1
6 “ “ 5………….. 29 to 1 35 to 1
10 “ “ 6………….. 18 to 1 20-6/10 to 1
15 “ “ 7………….. 12 to 1 13-2/5 to 1
21 “ “ 8…………… 8 to 1 9-2/7 to 1
25 “ “ 9…………… 6 to 1 7-2/3 to 1
27 “ “ 10………….. 6 to 1 7 to 1
27 “ “ 11…………... 6 to 1 7 to 1
25 “ “ 12…………… 6 to 1 7-2/3 to 1
21 “ “ 13…………… 8 to 1 9-2/7 to 1
15 “ “ 14…………… 12 to 1 13-2/5 to 1
10 “ “ 15…………… 18 to 1 20-6/10 to 1
6 “ “ 16…………… 29 to 1 35 to 1
3 “ “ 17…………… 60 to 1 71 to 1
1 “ “ 18………….. 180 to 1 215 to 1
216
The above are combinations which raffles don’t

affect.
On High and Low and Odd and Even, the raffles are
the percentage, which is 3 aces, 3 deuces, 3 treys, 3
fours, 3 fives, 3 sixes. 6 in 216 goes 36 times. 36 into
100 goes 2 and 28 over, which is 2 and 28/36 of 1 per
cent, or 2-7/9.
A dealer can take and pay 10 times a minute. So the
percentage every minute is over 25 per cent or 1,500
per cent per hour.
ROULETTE.
There are 36 numbers, ranging from 1 to 36, 18
Reds and 18 Blacks, with 00 and 0 for the percentage
of the house.
For single number, the game pays 35 for 1; exact
odds, 37 to 1. The double 0 and single 0 being the
percentage—which will come 2 in 38, or 1 in 19; 19 into
100 goes 5 and 5 over—which is 5-5/19 per cent,
anywhere you place your money.
FARO BANK.
If a person asks what is the percentage of Faro, they
must tell you how many cards are in the box and what
they are. Every time two cards are taken out, it either
decreases or increases the per centage. If ace and deuce
come out, it decreases the percentage. I can give you
the percentage of the high card before you take out a
card. There is an average of 2 splits a deal once in 26
times. If you take 13 cards, ace to king, and place an
ace with them, once in 13 times, on an average, the aces
will be together, but will not necessarily split, because
one can win and the next can lose; but once in 26 times,
on an average, there will be a split. 26 into 100 goes 3
times and 22 over, which is 3-22/26 per cent. The case,
or single card, is an even bet, there being no chance to

split you.
CRAPS.
Craps is a game which is known in South America
as Hazard. It was originated by white people centuries
ago, and is as old as Faro. It hasn’t been played in the
United States over 25 years. It was first played in New
Orleans, among the sailors, where the colored
roustabouts saw them while unloading ships. As it was
a game that could be played with 2 dice, and a table
being unnecessary, they could shoot on the ground or
any place.
There are 2 dice used in Craps, numbering from 1 to
6. Both dice added together make 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11 and 12. Now, to tell the number of possible ways
dice can come, multiply by six each time you add a dice.
One dice comes 6 ways, 2 dice come 36, and 3 dice
216—the same as Hazard.
Now, there is
1 way for 2
2 ways for 3
3 “ “ 4
4 “ “ 5
5 “ “ 6
6 “ “ 7
5 “ “ 8
4 “ “ 9
3 “ “ 10
2 “ “ 11
1 “ “ 12
36 ways in all.
7 and 11 wins for the player the first roll. 2, 3, or 12

wins for the game. If you don’t throw 2, 3, 12, 7, or 11,
you will throw 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10, which are points for
the player. Say, if 5 is the point, and a player should
throw 5 first, he wins; but should he throw 7, he would
lose, as 7 wins for the game after the first throw.
Now, I will prove there is no percentage in Craps: A
player has 8 ways to win to the game’s 4 ways. The first
throw, which is 8 to 4, or 2 to 1, which is 100 per cent
the best of it, in favor of the player. Well, how often has
the player got the best of it? 12 times in 36, or 1 in 3.
Then, how many ways are left for the dice to come?
There are 6 points which come 24 ways. Divide 24 by
the number of points, which will be an average of 4. Say
5 or 9 is the point, the game having 7, which is 6 ways.
6 to 4, 150 to 100, or 50 per cent the best of it 24 times
in 36, or 2 in 3 times.
Now, if the player has 100 per cent the best of it 12
times in 36, and the game has 50 per cent 24 times in
36, it means no percentage.
APPENDIX.
—
A FEATURE ARTICLE ABOUT THE
AUTHOR, AS PUBLISHED BY THE
PUNXSUTAWNEY (PA.) SPIRIT,
DEC. 30, 1896
—
SECRETS OF GAMBLING
—
Devious Devices Employed by
Professional Gamesters.
—
KID ROYAL GIVES THEM AWAY
—
He Shows How Sports Live on the Creduli-
ty of Their Victims ― No Fair Games
Where Professional Gamblers Are Inter-
ested ― Marked Cards and Loaded Dice.
Kid Royal, confidence man and gambler, having

ceased to gamble and swindle, is now known as H.
W. Royal and is devoting his life to an effort to
show those who risk their money in gambling
shops that they have absolutely no chance to win.
In furtherance of this purpose he recently wrote for
the New York Herald this statement:
“I am a reformed gambler, but not a converted

gambler in the sense that some believe me to be. I
want to be square, but let me say at once that I am
not religious. I was ‘done’ by the gamblers of
Chicago, and I am after them because they ‘did’ me.
I would travel 1,000 miles to a town whore
gambling is carried on openly simply for the
purpose of fighting those who fought me.
“I hope to show the boys of the country that
they cannot gamble with men who devote their
lives to studying how to beat other men, and that
when they are received in a gambling house their
host is hospitable because he knows how to get
their money.
“I speak from experience, as there is no part of
the road that I have not traveled. I did not confine
myself to gambling, but engaged in all sorts of
confidence games and frauds, including the gold
brick scheme, green goods business, bunko or
confidence game, flimflam, three card monte, three
shell game, race track wire-tapping, faro, roulette,
craps, draw poker, soap game and ‘top and bottom.’
One is the same as another, played by the dealer at
such times only as he knows that he has methods
by which he can win while pretending to play
squarely.
“Poker and craps are supposed to be games in
which a sharp player cannot be cheated; but, as in
all other gambling games, the possibilities for
cheating in these are without limit. The methods of
marking cards for poker are without limit and are
known to many gamblers.
“But a good gambler does not need to resort to
them. I can and do at my exhibitions stack the cards
without fear of detection by the sharpest watcher.
This I do by sleight of hand, aided by a delicacy of

touch that I have acquired. I can pick off any
number of cards from the top or the deck as readily
and as quickly as any man can cut the pack into two
unnumbered piles. I place three kings on top of the
pile and by shuffling three times can separate those
KID ROYAL.
kings by placing five, six or seven cards between

them on each shuffle, according to the number of
players in the game, and deal the kings to any man
I want to.
“Every gambler has his own method of dealing
in draw poker, and each so manipulates the cards
that he will win. My method was that described
above. If I want a fourth king, I place it on the top
of the deck and deal the card under it each time
until I throw the top one off to myself at the end of
the deal. No man can detect me.
“Craps is a square game if played squarely. The

percentage of chance is the same to the player as to
the house, and for that reason gambling house
keepers insist on playing the banker game of craps,
and the keeper is always the banker.
“To cheat with honest dice is a simple matter. I
can roll the dice ten feet and have them revolve 25
or 30 times without turning craps once in 100
throws, and then with the same dice I can throw
craps, or a natural, four times out of five. I have
never made the method public before, and it is very
simple.
“To avoid throwing craps, place the aces face to
face, and the two dice will roll over side by side like
a pair of wheels, with the ace and the six of each
on the side and never on the top. The numbers that
come to the top cannot make a crap number. By
playing the fours face to face, the four and trey of
each die is on the side and the numbers that may
come to the top will make craps, or a natural, four
out of five times.
“Not satisfied with a knowledge of how to use
honest dice to beat his customers, the gambling
house keeper always has ‘crooked’ dice. Shaped
dice measure less from the ace to the six surfaces.
Some dice are rounded on the deuce, trey, four and
five surfaces and flat on the ace and six surfaces.
Throws with such dice will result in 2, 7 or 12 being
frequently thrown to win for the banker.
“Suspicious players sometimes insist upon
having transparent dice that they may look through
them to see that they are not loaded, and the dealer
hands out a pair of dice that are transparent, but
loaded. The spots are unusually deep and are
plugged with celluloid on one side and white lead
on the other. The substances look the same, but the

weight of one is many times greater than that of
the other.
“Gamblers say roulette is always square
because the percentage in favor of the house is
large, but they have pins so arranged that they can
press them up into the wheel while it is revolving
and throw the marble where they will. They can
palm in a piece of rubber when they turn, and when
the marble hits the rubber it will bound off, or they
can put a piece of patent leather into any of the
black numbers and make it impossible for the ball
to get into that space.
“If what I have written will convince any one
that he cannot win from the gambler, I have done
well enough to satisfy myself for this time.”
―
—
NEWS ARTICLE ABOUT THE
AUTHOR, AS PUBLISHED BY THE
KANSAS CITY (MO.) JOURNAL,
JAN. 17, 1897
—
HOW GAMBLERS WIN AT GAMES

—
“KID” ROYAL DISCLOSES SECRETS
OF PROFESSIONALS’ DISHONESTY.
—
He Thirsts for Revenge—Gamblers, He
Says, “Did” Him, and in Return
He Makes Public Their Se-
crets—Expert Himself.
—
From the New York Herald.
“Kid” Royal, confidence man and gambler,
having ceased to gamble and swindle, is now
known as H. W. Royal, and is devoting his life to an
effort to show those who risk their money in
gambling shops that they have absolutely no
chance to win. He was known as a gambler in the
West, and there he carried on his work of exposing
the methods of gamblers from March last until a
week ago, when, while lecturing at Columbus, O.,
one in his audience said:
“You are not ‘Kid’ Royal. He is in the Bowery,

New York, exposing gamblers. I saw him there a
few days ago.”
Royal came East at once and in Essex Market
court last Thursday he accused the Bowery man of
having stolen his name. The reformer on the
Bowery admitted the charge and changed his name.
Royal likes New York and says he will bring his
family on and make this city his home. He expects
to be able to convince many men and boys of this
town that they might as well throw money away as
place it on any game of chance conducted by a
professional gambler.
“I am a reformed gambler,” he said, “but not a
converted gambler in the sense that some believe
me to be. I want to be square, but let me say at once
that I am not religious. I was ‘done’ by the gamblers
of Chicago, and I am after them because they ‘did’
me. I would travel a thousand miles to a town
where gambling is carried on openly simply for the
purpose of fighting those who fought me.
“I hope to show the boys of New York that they
cannot gamble with men who devote their lives to
studying how to beat other men and that when they
are received in a gambling bouse their host is
hospitable because he knows how to get their
money.
“I speak from experience, as there is no part of
the road that I have not traveled. I did not confine
myself to gambling, but engaged in all sorts of
confidences games and frauds, including the gold
brick scheme, green goods business, bunco or
confidence game, flim-flam. three-card monte,
three-shell game, race track wire-tapping, faro.
roulette, craps, draw poker, soap game and ‘top

and bottom.’ One is the same as another, played by
the dealer at such times only as he knows that he
has methods by which he can win, while pretending
to play squarely.
“I am told that there is no open gambling to
speak of in New York just now but draw poker and
craps. They are supposed to be games in which a
sharp player cannot be cheated, but, as in all other
gambling games, the possibilities for cheating in
these are without limit. The methods of marking
cards for poker are without limit, and are known to
many gamblers.
“But a good gambler does not need to resort to
them. I can and do, at my exhibitions, stack the
cards, without fear of detection by the sharpest
watcher. This I can do by sleight-of-hand, aided by
a delicacy of touch that I have acquired. I can pick
off any number of cards from the top of the deck as
readily and as quickly as any man can cut the pack
into two unnumbered piles. I place three kings on
top of the pile, and, by shuffling three times, can
separate those kings by placing five, six or seven
cards between them on each shuffle, according to
the number of players in the game, and deal the
kings to any man I want to.
“Every gambler has his own method of dealing
in draw poker, and each so manipulates the cards
that he will win. My method was that described
above. If I want a fourth king, I place it on the top
of the deck and deal the card under it each time
until I throw off to myself at the end of the deal. No
man can detect me.
“My advice to those who would play draw poker

is: Don’t play; but if you feel that you must play,
the following hints may prove to be useful:
“The whole object of poker is to save your own
money and to secure that of some one else. Win
cash and lose on credit is a good general rule.
Therefore, buy only one-half as many chips as you
think you will need and when they are gone, owe.
“Ante only when you are reminded of it. You
will make a chip or two in an evening by following
this advice.
“If anyone has to owe for chips, be the first to
do so and bet against the cash players.
“Get a look at the bottom card if you can. It may
alter your draw to do so.
“Always ‘salt’ away checks in your pocket. No
one will then know how you stand, and you can be
‘shy’ from time to time.
“Watch the discards carefully, but use them
sparingly. Excesses in these luxuries may beget
trouble.
“Sell your chips when you have plenty of them,
but only for cash.
“If there is a ‘kitty’ take a few extra cigars. You
may not smoke, but ‘there are others.’
“At the close of the game halve your winnings
and multiply your losses in discussing how you
stand. All good players do that.
“Never pay any holdover debts at the beginning
of a new game.
“When you are winning look at your watch and
say you must go, and go when you are ready.
“By following these rules you will be doing a

few of the things that the professional gamblers
with whom you play always do.
“Craps is a square game if played squarely. The
percentage of chance is the same to the player as to
the house, and for that reason gambling house
keepers insist on playing the banker game of craps,
and the keeper is always the banker. This is
necessary, because there is no percentage in favor
of the house in a square game of craps, and
gamblers cannot play a game that does not favor
them.
“When they do so they cease to be professional
gamblers and become ‘suckers.’
“To cheat with dishonest dice is a simple
matter. I can roll the dice ten feet and have them
revolve twenty-five or thirty times without turning
craps once in one hundred throws, and then with
the same dice I can throw craps, or a natural, four
times out of five. I have never made the method
public before, and it is very simple.
“To avoid throwing craps place the aces face to
face, and the two dice will roll over side by side like
a pair of wheels, with the ace and the six of each
on the side and never on the top. The numbers that
come to the top cannot make a crap number. By
playing the four face to face the four and trey of
each dice is on the side and the numbers that may
come to the top will make craps, or a natural, four
out of five times.
“Not satisfied with a knowledge of how to use
honest dice to beat his customers, the gambling
house keeper always has ‘crooked’ dice. A loaded
die can easily be detected by placing it between the
index finger and the thumb at its widest diameter

and turning it around slowly. Hold it lightly and it
will revolve back until the heavy side is at the
bottom if it is loaded.
“This is a positive and simple test. It never fails
and any one can use it. Shaped dice measure less
from the ace to the six surfaces. Some dice are
rounded on the deuce, trey, four and five surfaces.
Throws with such dice will result in two, seven or
twelve being frequently thrown to win for the
banker.
“Suspicious players sometimes insist upon
having transparent dice that they may look through
them to see that they are not loaded, and the dealer
hands out a pair of dice that are transparent, but
loaded. The spots are usually deep and are plugged
with celluloid on one side and white lead on the
other. The substances look the same, but the
weight of one is many times greater than that of
the other.
“These may be tested by revolving them
between the thumb and the finger, and shaped dice
may be tested by placing them side by side on a fiat
table, turning them over and over and by
comparing them, seeing that they are perfect
cubes. If they are shaped, the side with the five up
will be one-eighth of an inch higher than that with
the six up.
“When you know the dice are honest when you
commence to play, the banker is very apt to pick
them up after you have rolled them and substitute
loaded or shaped ones for those you have
examined. If you must shoot craps, test the dice
often while playing. The test alone will do more to
break up a crap game than anything else. There
being no percentage of chance in favor of the house

in a square game of craps, the keeper will not play
it squarely, as he does not have the best of it if he
does.
“Cappers are used in a game of craps. Never bet
on the throw of a man you do not know. He is apt
to be a capper and in the game to have you bet on
his throw that you may lose with him. The house
stands his loss, and he shares what is won from
you. Suppose nine or five is the point to be made,
and you bet that the capper will win. He places the
three and four facing each other and five and nine
are then impossible throws. This method applies to
any other points.
“I might go on and show the tricks by which
every other game is won by professional gamblers.
Three card monte is a sleight-of-hand trick, as is
the three shell game. I can never lose while
manipulating in either game. I can hide the jack in
the former and should the player pick it I can throw
it off and substitute the deuce so quickly that it is
impossible for him to see the move, and in the shell
game I can throw the ball from one shell to the
other with the aid of the shells and the board
without touching the ball with my hand.
“Gamblers say roulette is always square
because the percentage in favor of the house is
large, but they have pins so arranged that they can
press them up into the wheel while it is revolving
and throw the marble where they will. They can
palm in a piece of rubber when they turn, and when
the marble hits the rubber it will bound off, or they
can put a piece of patent leather into any of the
black numbers and make it impossible for the ball
to get into that space.”
(at left)
Advertisement for an
appearance by the
author at a Philadelphia
theater in October of
1897. Copies of this
booklet were offered for
sale to patrons at his
performances.

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REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION

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Confidence Games Exposed.

SHOWING HOW THE

PROPRIETOR OF GAMBLING HOUSES AND THE PLAYERS

EXPOSING ALL CROOKED TOOLS

Giving the Exact Per Cent. of All Square

EXPOSÉ OF CROOKED GAMBLING.

through Tunnel Hill into Dalton, to Calhoun, to

in the produce business there about a year. Not being

went to Guthrie and preempted two lots there, and put

straight gambling. The sixteen tables in the lobby were

went to the Chicago Dispatch and I gave them a

GOLD BRICK SCHEME

all about the responsibility of the bank and how much

proposition; this time he is looking for his old-time

“You see, sir, I am almost ashamed to own it, but to

man could tell us if there was any danger. So after the

been in the guard house over three weeks, so we told

Oray was a little crazy on account of being in the guard

be bored in certain places. Those places where the holes

everyday brass with the exception of about three places

our future mapped out plain and make no mistakes in

P. S.—You can fool all the people some of the time

THE STORY OF THE OVER-ISSUE.

SIMILAR TO GREEN GOODS.

of his money left in the newspaper and put it in your

GREEN GOODS EXPOSED.

which they furnish him, the contents of those messages

changed for a dummy. He takes it in his own hands,

EXPOSÉ OF BUNKO, OR CONFIDENCE.

THREE CARD MONTE.

THE INTRODUCTION AND STORY.

Monte Player: “Don’t like them at all. Was up here in

of money on you, would not hesitate to rob you and take

Now, I am going to mix them around. Now, could you

Monte Player: “Well, I will show you, for fun. Now, I

all. The capper says: “I am going to quit you now. Mr.

Of course, the victim thinks he has got $2,000 for

SHELL GAME AT CIRCUSES OR AT FAIRS.

the policeman that he has been robbed, and the

RACE TRACK OR WIRE-TAPPING GAG.

they changed the page of the book, by a motion of the

EXPOSURE OF CROOKED GAMBLING TOOLS TO

EXPOSÉ OF ROULETTE WHEELS.

holding out one or two, it being impossible for anyone

that way, so I would advise you to test the dice at any

three times they have fifty per cent, or six to four,

will cut the cards, leaving the threes on the bottom, or

cards can be stamped bias. That means some

A TIP, OR GIVING THE VICTIM THE BEST OF IT.

“Watch the discards carefully, but use them

HOW MEN ARE GIVEN THE BEST OF IT AT FARO

and he will always tell the victim how it is coming. Of

THE BEST OF IT IN ROULETTE.

BIG POKER HANDS ON TRAINS.

another about having a pretty good poker hand. One of

So I would advise anyone not to bet on a big poker

TOP AND BOTTOM.

The capper says: “Excuse me just a minute,” and he

Now, there is another way they have of shaking