When only six cards, it is 2 to 1 When only four cards, 2 to 1 That the player does not win his first stake is an equal bet. That he does not win twice following, is 3 to 1 Three times following, is 7 to 1 Four ditto, is 15 to 1 Five ditto, is 31 to 1 Six ditto, is 63 to 1
Having briefly outlined the method of playing, and shown how even when fairly played there is a very large percentage of odds in favor of the bank, it remains to point out some of the practices resorted to by those professional gamblers known as “advantage players,” “brace dealers,” etc., to take advantage of the gullible and unwary, called among the fraternity “chumps,” or by the still less euphonius term of “suckers.”
These practices may be grouped under three different heads: First, the cards themselves; second, the dealing box; and third, a system of confederates. These will be taken up in the order given.
1st. The cards themselves. The “skin gambler” never deals a game of faro without making use of cards known as “strippers,” or “humps.” These may be bought from dealers in gambling implements, or may be prepared by the gambler himself by using “trimming shears,” a tool devised for this special purpose, and costing from forty to seventy-five dollars per pair. “Strippers” are ordinary playing cards of the same size and form as the “square” ones used in dealing faro, from the edge of which a very little “strip” has been trimmed, thus making them a fraction narrower at one end than at the other. The “strip” cut off does not exceed one thirty-second part of an inch at one end and runs to a point at the other. These are used that certain cards may be reversed and known; that is, the narrow ends of some turned with the wide ends of others. Thus, the dealer may take all the cards under seven, and turn their narrow ends with the wide ends of the rest of the pack, thus greatly increasing the chances for “splits,” on which the banker wins half the stakes; moreover, the cards are used more in bunches, whereby the odds in his favor are still further increased. When the wide ends of such a pack are all together, it is difficult to detect them; but when a part only is reversed they are more easily distinguished, since if the pack be taken by opposite ends all those turned opposite ways will easily come out if pulled by the ends.