A square box, like an overgrown snuff-box, is next produced. It is of the exact size and shape to hold two packs of cards. It is of solid silver. Any other metal would serve as well; but a professed “faro dealer” would scorn to carry a mean implement of his calling. The object of this box is to hold the cards to be dealt, and to assist in dealing them. I cannot explain the internal mechanism of this mysterious box; but I can say that it is without a lid, open at one edge—where the cards are pressed in—and contains an interior spring, which, touched by the finger of the dealer, pushes out the cards one by one as they lie in the pack. This contrivance is not at all essential to the game, which may be played without the box. Its object is to insure a fair deal, as no card can be recognised by any mark on its back, since up to the moment of drawing they are all invisible within the box. A stylish “faro box” is the ambition of every “faro dealer”—the specific title of all “sportsmen” whose game is faro.
Two packs of cards, well shuffled, are first put into the box; and the dealer, resting the left hand upon it, and holding the right in readiness, with the thumb extended, pauses a moment until some bets are made. The “dealer” is in reality your antagonist in the game; he is the “banker” who pays all your gains, and pockets all your losses. As many may bet as can sit or stand around the table; but all are betting against the dealer himself. Of course, in this case, the faro dealer must be something of a proprietor to play the game at all; and the “faro bank” has usually a capital of several thousands of dollars—often hundreds of thousands to back it! Not unfrequently, after an unlucky run, the bank gets “broke;” and the proprietor of it may be years before he can establish another. An assistant or “croupier” usually sits beside the dealer. His business is to exchange the “cheques” for money, to pay the bets lost, and gather in those which the bank has won.
The cheques used in the game are pieces of ivory of circular form, of the diameter of dollars: they are white, red, or blue, with the value engraved upon them, and they are used as being more convenient than the money itself. When any one wishes to leave off playing, he can demand from the bank to the amount specified on the cheques he may then hold.
The simplest method of betting “against faro” is by placing the money on the face of any particular one of the cards that lie on the table. You may choose which you will of the thirteen. Say you have selected the ace, and placed your money upon the face of that card. The dealer then commences, and “draws” the cards out of the box one by one. After drawing each two he makes a pause. Until two aces follow each other, with no other card between, there is no decision. When two aces come together the bet is declared. If both appear in the drawing of the two cards, then the dealer takes your money; if only one is pulled out, and the other follows in the next drawing, you have won. You may then renew your bet upon the ace—double it if you will, or remove it to any other card—and these changes you may make at any period of the deal—provided it is not done after the first of the two cards has been drawn.
Of course the game goes on, whether you play or not. The table is surrounded by betters; some on one card, some on another; some by “paralee,” on two or more cards at a time; so that there is a constant “falling due” of bets, a constant rattling of cheques and chinking of dollars.
It is all a game of chance. “Skill” has naught to do with the game of faro; and you might suppose, as many do, that the chances are exactly equal for the dealer and his opponents. Such, however, is not the case; a peculiar arrangement of the cards produces a percentage in favour of the former, else there would be no faro bank; and although a rare run of ill-fortune may go against the dealer for a time, if he can only hold out long enough, he is “bound to beat you” in the end.
A similar percentage will be against you in all games of chance—“faro,” “monte,” or “craps,” wherever you bet against a “banker.” Of course the banker will not deny this, but answers you, that that small percentage is to “pay for the game.” It usually does, and well.
Such is faro—the game at which I had resolved to empty my purse, or win the price of my betrothed.