Science, electricity, hypnotism, sleight of hand, or other means are used to deceive the player.
Unless you can note the swift touch of the gambler’s foot on the electric button, which drops the little ball into the red hole when you bet on the black, you face ruin every time you face the roulette wheel.
Can you see the invisible hand that is doping the racetrack sheet? If you cannot, stay away from the handbook or be prepared to look into the dark and murky waters of the river as a final hiding place of shame.
Do you think the friendly game of poker is on “the square”? If you do you are mistaken. The house has two men, professional sharks, fishing for your money. They are out to get it and they will succeed. They will whip-saw you back and forth until they exhaust you and tire your alertness. Then they will crucify you on the cross of your own cupidity and zeal to make a millionaire’s fortune in a night on the income of a counter clerk.
The game has not been beaten. That is why the gambling combine is strong. That is why it has the support of the Vice Trust. Like the man who hopes to withstand the temptations of the crime-centers, and as the woman who ventures is poisoned unto death with the venom of sin, so the man who goes forth to tempt Fate and win a kiss from the cold lips of Chance, is enmeshed before he is aware of it and borne onward in the terrible maelstrom which hurls him into the bottomless pit of infamy and shame.
The gambling curse is a terrible one. Its stigma burns on the cheek of its victims forever. Scarcely any hope can be held out to the man who is trapped by its subtle lure.
To those young men and young women of the city and the country, we write this warning. We have shown that you “cannot beat the game,” no matter how intelligently you try.
The Vice Trust has never known defeat. It will not know defeat in this enormous source of revenue pouring into its coffers annually from the favored, police-protected, bomb-throwing, life-destroying Gambling Combine.
IF HOLDUPS INCREASE.