“Look here,” I said suddenly, withdrawing my closed fist from my trousers pocket, “I’ll bet you five dollars I’ve got more money in my hand than you have.”
“Done!” he cried, and diving his hand into his pocket he withdrew it stuffed full of gold pieces.
Mine held a matter of a few cents. “I’ve won,” he cried, exhibiting his fistful of wealth.
“Not at all,” I retorted, “I said in my hand. That money is not in my hand; it’s in yours. You’ve lost. Pay up.”
Which he did, with the best grace he could.
A few days later he met me, and told me that he had won over five hundred dollars from fellow gamblers by means of the trick. And these men were supposed to be among the “widest” on the American continent.
Here is a trick game with matches which sounds as if nothing could be fairer, and which yet is, in reality, an arrant swindle. The man who wants to practise it starts off by telling his opponent (and dupe) that it is a Chinese gambling game. This tends to throw him off his guard.
He then takes a number of matches and places them under his hat. Next he tells the other fellow to take any number of matches from the box, place them on the table, and lift the hat. “If,” he says, “you have put down an even number of matches, and the sum total of both heaps of matches, yours and mine, is even, then you win. If you have put down an odd number, and the sum total of both heaps of matches, yours and mine, is odd, then also you win. Otherwise you lose.”
This seems perfectly fair and aboveboard, yet in reality the game is entirely in the hands of the man who puts the matches under the hat. If he puts an even number of matches (say six) there, and the other man puts down an even number (say four) then the total (ten) is an even number, and the other fellow wins. If the other man puts down three he also wins, he having put down an odd number, and the sum total of the two heaps being odd.
In short, if I, who am supposed to be working the trick, choose to put an even number of matches under the hat in the first instance, then the other man must win. But equally, if I put an odd number, he must lose, for in that case if he puts an odd number down the sum total of the two heaps is bound to be even, and if he puts an even number down the sum total is bound to be odd.