I. FARO BANKS.
In spite of the fact that games of chance for money are prohibited by the laws of the State of New York, there is no city in the Union in which they are carried on to a greater extent than in the Metropolis. There are about 200 gambling houses proper in the city, and from 350 to 400 lottery offices, policy shops, and places where gambling is carried on with more or less regularity. About 2500 persons are known to the police as professional gamblers. Some of the establishments are conducted with great secrecy. Others are carried on with perfect openness, and are as well known as any place of legitimate business in the city. The police, for reasons best known to themselves, decline to execute the laws against them, and they continue their career from year to year without molestation. There are about twenty of these houses in Broadway, occupying locations which make them conspicuous to every passer-by. In the cross streets, within a block of Broadway, there are from twenty-five to thirty more, and the Bowery and East side streets are full of them.
Ninety-five of the gambling houses of the city are classed as “Faro Banks.” Faro is the principal game, but there are appliances for others. Faro is emphatically an American game, and is preferred by amateurs because of its supposed fairness. An experienced gambler, however, does not need to be told that the game offers as many chances for cheating as any others that
are played. It has attained its highest development in New York.
The gambling houses of New York are usually divided into three classes: First and Second Class, and Day Houses. The First-Class Houses are few in number. There are probably not more than half a dozen in all, if as many. In these houses the playing is fair—that is, cheating is never resorted to. The Bank relies upon the chances in its favor, the “splits,” and the superior skill and experience of the dealer. The first-class houses are located in fashionable side streets leading from Broadway, and are easy of access. Outwardly they differ in nothing from the elegant mansions on either side of them, except that the blinds are closed all day long, and the house has a silent, deserted air. In its internal arrangements the house is magnificent. The furniture, carpets, and all its appointments are superb. Choice paintings and works of art are scattered through the rooms in truly regal profusion. All that money can do to make the place attractive and luxurious has been done, and as money can always command taste, the work has been well done.
The servants attached to the place are generally negroes of the better class. They are well trained, many of them having been brought up as the valets, or butlers of the Southern gentry, and answer better for such places than whites, inasmuch as they are quiet, uncommunicative, attentive and respectful. One of these men is always in charge of the front door, and visitors are admitted with caution, it being highly desirable to admit only the nominally respectable. The best known houses are those of Morrissey, in Twenty-fourth street, and Ransom’s and Chamberlain’s, in Twenty-fifth street. Chamberlain’s is, perhaps, the most palatial and the best conducted establishment in the country.
The house is a magnificent brown-stone mansion, not far from Broadway. Ascending the broad stone steps, and ringing the bell, the visitor is ushered into the hall by the man in charge of the door, who is selected with great care. An attentive colored servant takes his hat and overcoat, and throws open the door of the drawing rooms. These apartments are furnished with
taste as well as with magnificence. The carpet is of velvet, and the foot sinks noiselessly into it. The walls are tinted with delicate shades of lavender, and the ceiling is exquisitely frescoed. The furniture is of a beautiful design, and is upholstered in colors which harmonize with the prevailing tint of the walls and ceiling. The mantels are of Vermont marble, and over each is a large wall mirror. At each end of the room is a long pier glass, placed between richly curtained windows. Fine bronzes are scattered about the room, and in the front parlor are large and well-executed copies of Dora’s “Dante and Virgil in the Frozen Regions of Hell,” and “Jephthah’s Daughter.” The front parlor is entirely devoted to the reception and entertainment of guests. The gaming is carried on in the back parlor.
In the rear of the back parlor is the supper room, one of the richest and most tasteful apartments in the city. A long table, capable of seating fifty guests, is spread every evening with the finest of linen, plate, and table-ware. The best the market can afford is spread here every night. The steward of the establishment is an accomplished member of his profession, and is invaluable to his employer, who gives him free scope for the exercise of his talents. There is not a better table in all New York. The wines and cigars are of the finest brands, and are served in the greatest profusion. Chamberlain well understands that a good table is an important adjunct to his business, and he makes the attraction as strong as possible. There is no charge for the supper, or for liquors or cigars, but the guests are men above the petty meanness of enjoying all these luxuries without making some return for them. This return is made through the medium of the card table.
The proprietor of the house, John Chamberlain, is one of the handsomest men in the city. He is of middle height, compactly built, with a fine head, with black hair and eyes, and small features. His expression is pleasant and winning, and he is said to be invariably good natured, even under the most trying circumstances. In manner he is a thorough-bred gentleman, and exceedingly attractive. He is of middle age, and is finely educated. His self-possession is remarkable, and never
deserts him, and he has the quality of putting his guests thoroughly at their ease. In short, he is a man fitted to adorn any position in life, and capable of reaching a very high one, but who has chosen to place himself in a position which both the law and popular sentiment have branded as infamous. Indeed, his very attractions and amiable qualities make him a very dangerous member of the community. He draws to the card table many who would be repelled from it by the ordinary gambler, and the fairness with which he conducts his house renders it all the more dangerous to society.
The guests consist of the most distinguished men in the city and country. Chamberlain says frankly that he does not care to receive visitors who are possessed of limited incomes and to whom losses would bring misfortune. He says it hurts him more to win the money of a man on a salary, especially if he has a family, than to lose his own, and as he does not care to be a loser he keeps these people away as far as possible. In plain English, he wishes to demoralize only the higher classes of society. His visitors are chiefly men who are wealthy and who can afford to lose, or whose high social or political stations make them welcome guests. You may see at his table Governors, Senators, members of Congress and of Legislatures, generals, judges, lawyers, bankers, merchants, great operators in Wall street, famous actors and authors, journalists, artists—in short, all grades of men who have attained eminence or won wealth in their callings. Consequently, the company is brilliant, and the conversations are such as are seldom heard in the most aristocratic private mansions of the city. The early part of the evening is almost exclusively devoted to social enjoyment, and there is very little gambling until after supper, which is served about half-past eleven, after the theatres have closed.
Then the back parlor is the centre of attraction. There is a roulette table on the eastern side of this apartment, said to be the handsomest piece of furniture in the Union. At the opposite side is a large side-board bountifully provided with liquor and cigars. The faro table stands across the room at the southern end, and is the most popular resort of the guests, though
some of the other games find their votaries in other parts of the room.
“The table upon which faro is played is not unlike an ordinary dining-table with rounded corners. At the middle of one side, the place generally occupied by the head of a family, the dealer sits in a space of about three square feet, which has been fashioned in from the table. The surface is covered with tightly drawn green ladies’ cloth. The thirteen suit cards of a whist pack are inlaid upon the surface in two rows, with the odd card placed as at the round of the letter U. The dealer has a full pack, which he shuffles, then inserts in a silver box with an open face. This box is laid upon the table directly to his front.
“The cards are confined within it by a stiff spring, and the top card is visible to all, save a narrow strip running about its edge, which is necessarily covered by the rim of the box to hold it securely in position.
“The game now begins. The dealer pushes out the top card, and the second card acted upon by the spring rises and fills its place. The second card is pushed off likewise laterally through the narrow slit constructed for the exit of all the cards. This pair thus drawn out constitutes a ‘turn,’ the first one being the winning and the second the losing card; so that the first, third, fifth, and in the same progression throughout the fifty-two are winning cards, and the second, fourth and sixth, etc., are the losing cards. The betting is done this way: The player buys ivory checks and never uses money openly. The checks are white, red, blue, and purple. The white checks are one dollar each, the red five dollars, the blue twenty-five and the purple one hundred dollars.
“Having provided himself with the number of checks (which in size resemble an old-fashioned cent), he lays down any amount to suit his fancy on any one card upon the table—one of the thirteen described. Suppose the deal is about to begin. He puts $100 in checks on the ace. The dealer throws off the cards till finally an ace appears. If it be the third, fifth, seventh, etc., card the player wins, and the dealer pays him $100 in checks—the ‘bank’s’ loss. If, however, it were the second,
fourth, sixth, etc., card the dealer takes the checks and the bank is $100 winner. Should a player desire to bet on a card to lose, he expresses this intention by putting a ‘copper’ in his checks, and then if the card is thrown off from the pack by the dealer as a losing card the player wins. This is practically all there is in faro.
“It should be remembered that the losing cards fall on one pile and the winning cards on another. When only four cards remain in the box there is generally lively betting as to how the three under cards will come out in precise order, the top one being visible. In this instance alone the player can treble his stake if fortunate in his prediction. This evolution is a ‘call.’
“A tally board is kept, showing what cards remain in the box after each turn. This provision is to guard the player. Of course four of each kind are thrown from the box—four aces, etc.
“Some one will inquire how does the bank make it pay while taking such even chances? In this way. If two of a kind should come out in one ‘turn,’ as, for instance, two aces, half of the money bet on the ace, either to win or lose, goes to the bank. This is known as a ‘split. They are very frequent, and large sums pass to the dealer through this channel. That is where the bank makes the money.
“Chamberlain says that if men were to study and labor ten thousand years they could never beat the bank, or rather the game. It is something which no one understands. When only one of a kind remains in the box, as an ace, for instance, to bet then that the card will come to win or to lose is just like throwing up a copper and awaiting the result, head or tail. So it will be seen that the bank is in a position where it has everything to risk.
“The playing is conducted largely by means of checks on the National banks of the city, men seldom carrying money about their persons. Here Mr. Chamberlain has to use his wits. A check given for gaming purposes is not valid in law. Therefore it is necessary to know his man—to be sure of his wealth, to be certain of his credit. It requires instantaneous
decision. If the check is refused the drawer is mortally offended. But a few evenings since a city millionaire offered his check; it was declined. This was Chamberlain’s mistake. It is said that if a merchant repudiates his gambling check at the bank it will destroy his credit in commercial circles. This is the only safeguard upon which the faro bank relies. It shows, however, to what a dangerous extent gambling has laid hold of the mercantile community, how rottenness is at this hour the inward germ of apparent soundness, and how heads of heavy concerns fritter away their capital at faro.
“The largest number of business men who play at Chamberlain’s are stock brokers, and these persons say openly that it is a fairer game than the cunning and unscrupulous gambling of Wall street. The brokers, as well as other patrons, go in the night time to try and regain what they lost by day in speculation. Thus they alternate between one gaming resort and the other throughout the year. At the faro table they may lose several thousand dollars; but this they consider equivalent pay for rich suppers, costly wines, fine cigars and a merry time, and they are willing to pay for fun.
“Besides the opportunities which Chamberlain affords to his patrons to lose or win, as luck may direct, he keeps a sort of midnight national bank, where he will cash a check for any man he knows as a reliable party, and many who never think of gambling take advantage of his accommodating spirit. This is why he is reputed a good and valuable neighbor.
“How skilfully contrived are all these minutiæ of a gambling palace! They seduce even those who would gladly have never seen a game of chance, and before one is aware of his danger he is past redemption.”
Next to the first-class houses come the Second-Class Houses, or “Hells,” as they are called in the city. These lie principally along Broadway and the side streets leading from it, and in the Bowery. They are numerous, and are the most frequented by strangers. They are neither as elegantly furnished, nor as exclusive as to their guests, as the first-class houses. Any one may visit them, and they keep a regular force of runners, or
“ropers in,” for the purpose of enticing strangers within their walls. They are located over stores, as a general rule, and the Broadway establishments usually have a number of flashily-dressed, vulgar-looking men about their doors in the day time, who are insufferably rude to ladies passing by.
Faro is the usual game played at these houses, but it is a very different game from that which goes on under the supervision of John Chamberlain. In gambler’s parlance, it is called a “skin game.” In plain English it means that the bank sets
out to win the player’s money by deliberate and premeditated fraud. In first-class houses a visitor is never urged to play. Here every guest must stake his money at the risk of encountering personal violence from the proprietor or his associates. The dealer is well skilled in manipulating the cards so as to make them win for the bank always, and every effort is made to render the victim hazy with liquor, so that he shall not be able to keep a clear record in his mind of the progress of the game. A common trick is to use sanded cards, or cards with their surfaces roughened, so that two, by being handled in a certain way, will adhere and fall as one card. Again, the dealer will so arrange his cards as to be sure of the exact order in which they will come out. He can thus pull out one card, or two at a time, as the “necessities of the bank” may require. Frequently no tally is kept of the game, and the player is unable to tell how many turns have been made—whether the full number or less. Even if the fraud is discovered, the visitor will find it a serious matter to attempt to expose it. The majority of the persons present are in the pay of the bank, and all are operating with but one object—to get possession of the money of visitors. The slightest effort at resistance will ensure an assault, and the guest is either beaten and thrown into the street, or he is robbed and murdered, and his body thrown into the river. There are always men hanging around these places who are on the watch for an opportunity to commit a robbery. The most notorious burglars and criminals of the city visit these hells. They keep a close watch over visitors who stay until the small hours of the morning, especially upon those who are under the influence of liquor. They follow them down into the dark and silent streets, and, at a favorable moment, spring upon them, knock them senseless and rob them. If necessary to ensure their own safety, they do not hesitate to murder their victims.
Many persons coming to the city yield to the temptation to visit these places, merely to see them. They intend to lose only a dollar or two as the price of the exhibition. Such men voluntarily seek the danger which threatens them. Nine out of ten who go there merely through curiosity, lose all their money.
The men who conduct the “hell” understand how to deal with such cases, and are rarely unsuccessful.
It is in these places that clerks and other young men are ruined. They lose, and play again, hoping to make good their losses. In this way they squander their own means; and too frequently commence to steal from their employers, in the vain hope of regaining all they have lost.
There is only one means of safety for all classes—Keep away from the gaming table altogether.
At first gambling was carried on only at night. The fascination of the game, however, has now become so great, that day gambling houses have been opened in the lower part of the city. These are located in Broadway, below Fulton street, and in one or two other streets within the immediate neighborhood of Wall street.
These “houses,” as they are called, are really nothing more than rooms. They are located on the top floor of a building, the rest of which is taken up with stores, offices, etc. They are managed on a plan similar to the night gambling houses, and the windows are all carefully closed with wooden shutters, to prevent any sound being heard without. The rooms are elegantly furnished, brilliantly lighted with gas, and liquors and refreshments are in abundance. As the stairway is thronged with persons passing up and down, at all hours of the day, no one is noticed in entering the building for the purpose of play. The establishment has its “runners” and “ropers in,” like the night houses, who are paid a percentage on the winnings from their victims, and the proprietor of the day house is generally the owner of a night house higher up town.
Square games are rarely played in these houses. The victim is generally fleeced. Men who gamble in stocks, curbstone brokers, and others, vainly endeavor to make good a part of their losses at these places. They are simply unsuccessful. Clerks, office-boys, and others, who can spend but a few minutes and lose only a few dollars at a time, are constantly seen in these hells. The aggregate of these slight winnings by the bank is very great in the course of the day. Pickpockets and
thieves are also seen here in considerable numbers. They do not come to practise their arts, for they would be shown no mercy if they should do so, but come to gamble away their plunder, or its proceeds.
It is not necessary to speak of the evils of gambling, of the effect of the vice upon society. I have merely to describe the practice as it prevails here. New York is full of the wrecks it has made. Respectable and wealthy families there are by the score whose means have been squandered on the green cloth. There are widows and orphans here whose husbands and fathers have been driven into suicide by gambling losses. The State Prisons hold men whose good names have been blasted, and whose souls have been stained with crime in consequence of this vice. Yet the evil is suffered to grow, and no honest effort is made to check it.