{"id":25361,"date":"2020-11-23T13:59:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T19:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/?p=25361"},"modified":"2020-11-23T14:00:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T20:00:38","slug":"old-school-con-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/old-school-con-game\/","title":{"rendered":"R. Paul Wilson On: An Old School Con Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This is a favourite old-time con trick that was described in The Artful Dodges of Eddie Fields<\/a><\/em> and was performed on The Real Hustle<\/a><\/em> while hustling patrons in a Las Vegas saloon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I love about this scam is the element of\ntheatre created by the scammers to stimulate a predictable response from the\npatrons of a bar, then sucker them into taking advantage of the con artist with\na predictably disappointing outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It reminds me of the George C. Scott movie originally-titled The Flim-Flam Man<\/a><\/em> and the con games he pulled on small businesses filled with locals around America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If I were a traveling con man in the 1950s, this\nwould be in my repertoire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Do\nyou like card tricks?” <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “No,\nI hate card tricks,\u201d I answered. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well, I’ll just show you this one.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He showed me three.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n – W. Sommerset Maugham<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was in a car with my best friend since childhood, who had suffered through my early years of obsession with playing cards<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, he was quite done with card tricks\nhaving received a lifetime\u2019s supply during our youth so whenever we got\ntogether, magic was never to be mentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Driving to lunch, we stopped at a traffic light\nand without warning, the back door opened and someone got into the back of my\ncar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thankfully, this was another friend of mine from\nthe magic fraternity who just happened to be waiting to cross the street when\nmy car pulled up and by the time the light changed, we were all on our way to\nlunch together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, this was the collision of two very\ndifferent worlds and when my magician friend asked my other friend if he liked\nmagic, he bluntly replied: \u201cActually, no, I don\u2019t\u201d to which my magician friend\nsaid, \u201cOkay, just these two\u2014\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine my surprise when I found almost this\nexact situation described in a short story by W. Sommerset Maugham less than\nweek later!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, while the Maugham story features a\nboorish lout who somewhat redeems himself in the context of the story, my\nmagician friend was simply too enthused to take no for an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the idea of card tricks being the reserve of\nloud know-it-alls is not unique to the pages of short fiction and in the 1940s,\nEddie Fields and his partner used this idea to concoct a devilishly simple con\ngame that they played all over Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eddie would set the scene by entering a bar and establishing himself as a loud, friendly character who would try to get a little (gambling) action going with a few bar bets<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the course of a few hours, Eddie would\nhustle free drinks by performing stunts with olives, forks, drinking glasses\nand sugar cubes until he was firmly recognised as the bar big-mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During all of this, Eddie\u2019s partner would arrive\nand settle somewhere close to Eddie while he worked the crowd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Eddie\u2019s partner felt the room was ripe, he\u2019d\ngive a signal; Eddie would produce a pack of cards and go to work regaling\nfellow drinkers with simple miracles.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWho Loves Card Tricks?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Set Up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n