Supposing that hitherto the heaviest betting has been on the high cards, the dealer will put up the pack in such a way that only the low ones win for the players. That is to say, the cards will come out alternately high and low, the high ones falling to the bank. As the game proceeds the first of the tell-cards by degrees comes nearer and nearer the top, and the dealer looks out for the needle-tell to indicate its approach. By this time, perhaps, the players may have noticed that the high cards are losing, and therefore may have altered their play, betting now upon the low cards. If this is so, the bank will begin to lose, but not for long. When the tell-card has become the second from the top the dealer manipulates the two-card device and draws out two cards at once. The run of the game is now altered. The cards still come out alternately high and low, but the high cards now go to the players. As they have taken to betting on the low ones they lose in consequence. If, however, the players show no signs of changing their mode of betting when the first tell-card nears the top, the dealer does not alter the run of the cards, but goes straight on. When he comes to the second duplicate card he must deal out two at once, or the 'odd' would be discovered.
The cases given above are put in the simplest form, for clearness; but it must not be imagined that anyone investigating a suspected case of cheating would find the cards arranged to come out always high and low alternately. The dealer knows better than to risk anything of that kind. He would be caught directly. The cards are merely put up in a general sort of way, so as to give a preponderance in one direction or the other; the dealer being at liberty to alter the general run of the cards at either of the two duplicates. Of course he might even have two extra cards in the pack, these and their duplicates being tell-cards. That would give him a choice of two out of four opportunities of altering the run; but the more devices he employs the greater the chances of detection. One turn in the deal is plenty. It gives the dealer all the opportunities he needs; and in the long run he is bound to win. It is said that in some 'skin' houses in New York decks of 54, 55, or even 56 cards are frequently played on soft gamblers.
It is possible for the dealer and players alike to be in a general conspiracy to cheat the bank. The dealer is not necessarily the banker. The bank may be found by anyone; the proprietor of the gambling saloon, for instance. But a dealer would be very foolish to cheat his employer. In a private game, if a dupe can be put up to find the bank in money, that is all right for the sharps. They are, one and all, at liberty to go in and win—and they do.
The reader may be interested in knowing that in America some of the dealers who are employed by proprietors of gambling houses, or saloons as they are called, will demand a salary of four or five thousand dollars. It is said that a very expert dealer is worth that amount per annum, and that he can get it. It strikes one as being a somewhat high rate of pay for a man whose sole duty is to shuffle and deal out cards for a few hours a day, if that is his sole duty. Suspicious persons—and there are a few such in the world—might be tempted to believe that there is more in the dealer's duties than meets the eye, and a 'darned sight' more. Whatever opinion may be entertained upon the subject, we can all join, at any rate, in hoping for the best, and in praying for the bettor. Though when a man is idiot enough to lose his money, as some do day after day, in a game where his own common sense ought to tell him that he stands every chance of being cheated, he may be looked upon as a hopeless case. There is nothing that will ever knock intelligence into him, or his gambling propensities out of him. The only system of treatment that could be expected to do him any good would be a lengthened course of strait-waistcoat, to be repeated with additions upon any sign of a recurrence of the malady.
Two or three years ago an Englishman won 5,000l. in one year at the Cape, in a sort of rough-and-tumble game of faro. He ran the bank without either cue-cards or case-keeper, and also without a dealing-box, as in the prehistoric times in America before the losses experienced by those who 'bucked against the tiger' forced these implements into use. He dealt the cards out of his hand. The miners played against him for gold-dust and he nearly always won. His operations were of the most primitive kind. He simply had a lot of packs of cards, apparently new, but which had been opened and arranged. Some were packed for the high cards to win; some for the low ones. He would take a pack down, give it a false shuffle and begin to deal it. If he wanted to alter the run of the cards, he could at any time do so by merely dropping the top card on the floor. This he did very cleverly, and nobody noticed it, because the floor was always littered with used cards. Having no case-keeper to record the game, the missing cards were never missed. What about the poor miners? Well, they must have been flats if their equilibrium remained undisturbed through a lively game such as that. They deserved to lose all that the dealer won.
This sharp is now in England 'mug-hunting.' He is at present acting as bear-leader to a young man who has just come into 1,700l. a year. He makes most of his living at 'lumbering' and 'telling the tale,' and his stronghold is the bottom deal. The writer has great pleasure in acknowledging his indebtedness to him for much of the information as to the methods of the common English sharp. He is a swindler, but a most agreeable and gentlemanly one.
This Faro is a hard-hearted monarch whose constant delight appears to be a slaughter of the innocents; though one can hardly suppose that his victims are often the heirs male of Israel. Be that as it may, however, Faro's victims can hardly hope for succour from a daughter of Faro, for his only offspring are greed and fraud. And those who bow the head and bend the knee to Faro are simply ministering to these two, his children. Those who waste their substance on Faro are merely forging fetters for their own limbs, and giving themselves body and soul to a taskmaster from whose thraldom they will find it difficult to escape.
To descend from metaphor to matter of fact, there is no game which gives freer rein to the passion of gambling than faro. There is no game in which money is lost and won more readily. Above all, there is no game in which the opportunities of cheating are more numerous or more varied. If these are qualities which can recommend it to a man of common sense, call me a gambler.