Playing Fantan in Private House.
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Number three wins. All those who bet on one, two and four lose their stakes, while those who bet on three receive five times the amount of their stakes after a deduction of twenty-five per cent. has been made. We put a dollar on number three; well, after deducting twenty-five per cent. from it as profit for the table, seventy-five cents are left, and we receive five times that amount, which is equal to three dollars and seventy-five cents.
These fantan shops, of which there may be twenty or thirty, are all licensed and kept under strict supervision, being farmed out to rich syndicates by the Portuguese authorities, the large sums thus realised forming no inconsiderable part of the colony's revenue.
Play goes on day and night all the year round, Sundays included, and is practically unlimited, for it is possible to bet from five cents to five hundred dollars at a time. Large sums are continually won and lost, it being a common thing to see gamblers, both men and women, after staking their last cash hand over watches, jewellery and other valuables to the shroff for valuation, and hazard all on a final throw to retrieve their losses.
This standing temptation of the fantan shops is a fertile source of crime, especially amongst domestic servants, for apart from the Chinaman's inborn love of gambling, in the event of their being in financial straits, as is frequently the case, a possible way out of such difficulties is by stealthily taking certain objects from their master's house, say a clock and a dozen silver spoons, pledging them at one of the numerous pawn-shops and gambling with the proceeds. If fortune be favourable the clock and spoons are immediately redeemed and returned before being missed, while the servant has found an easy way out of his difficulties. On the other hand, should luck be against the player, he either bolts to another part of the country or brazens out the theft by declaring that the house has been broken into by burglars.
Trusted servants who have been many years in one employ frequently yield to this alluring but hazardous appeal to chance.
One morning as I was leaving Macao for Hongkong by the daily steamer a Chinese passenger suddenly leaped overboard. The ship was stopped and a boat quickly lowered, while a Portuguese police launch also dashed to the rescue, but although we could see the suicide's head above water for some time he sank before help arrived. Having ruined himself at fantan he dared not return to Hongkong.