BANKING GAMES.
There are two distinct classes of banking games; those that can be played without any apparatus but a pack of cards and some counters; and those which require a permanent establishment and expensive paraphernalia. Among the first, probably the best known banking games are: Vingt-et-un, Baccara, Blind Hookey, and Fan Tan, the latter requiring only one card, the face of which is never seen. In the second class, which are often called table games, probably the best known are: Faro, Keno, Roulette, Rouge et Noir, and Chuck Luck.
Each of these games has a number of offshoots, and the distinctions between the original and the variation are sometimes so minute as to be hardly worth mentioning. As a matter of reference, and for the convenience of those who hear these variations spoken of, their names and chief characteristics are here given.
Banking games, properly so-called, are those in which one player is continually opposed to all the others. In round games, each player is for himself, but no player is selected for the common enemy. In partnership games, the sides are equally divided, and any advantage in the deal or lead passes alternately from one to the other. In other games, the single player that may be opposed to two or three others usually takes the responsibility upon himself, and for one deal only, so that any advantage he may have is temporary. In banking games, on the contrary, one player is selected as opposed to all others, and the opposition is continual. If there is any advantage in being the banker, it is supposed to be a permanent one, and if the banker has not been at any special expense in securing the advantages of his position he is obliged to surrender it from time to time and give other players a chance. This is the rule in Vingt-et-un, Baccara, and Blind Hookey. If the banker is not changed occasionally, he retains his position on account of the expense he has been put to to provide the apparatus for the play, as in Faro, Keno, Roulette, and Rouge et Noir. To justify this expenditure he must have some permanent advantage, and if no such advantage or “percentage” is inherent in the principles of the game, any person playing against such a banker is probably being cheated.
At Monte Carlo, everything is perfectly fair and straightforward, but no games are played except those in which the percentage in favour of the bank is evident, and is openly acknowledged. In Faro there is no such advantage, and no honest faro bank can live. It is for that reason that the game is not played at Monte Carlo, in spite of the many thousands of Americans who have begged the management to introduce it. The so-called percentage of “splits” at Faro is a mere sham, and any candid dealer will admit that they do not pay for the gas. Roulette, Rouge et Noir, Keno, and Chuck Luck are all percentage games, although the banker in the latter is seldom satisfied with his legitimate gains.
The peculiarity about all percentage banking games is that no system, as a system, will beat them. The mathematical expectation of loss is so nicely adjusted to the probabilities of gain that the player must always get just a little the worst of it if he will only play long enough. Take any system of martingales, and suppose for the sake of illustration that in 1000 coups you will win 180 counters. The mathematical expectation of the game is such that just about once in a thousand coups your martingale will carry you to a point in which you will lose 200 counters, leaving you just 20 behind on every 1000 if you keep on playing. Every system has been carefully investigated, and enormous labour has been expended on the compilation of tables recording for a long series of time every number rolled at Roulette, and every coup raked in at Rouge et Noir, and the result of all systems is found to be the same, the bank succeeds in building up its percentage like a coral island, while the player’s money disappears like water in the sand.