Gambling

A great book on the tricks of the trade of professional gamblers, how they cheat and get an advantage in the game. From the introduction:

It has been my fortune, or misfortune, whichever you wish to term it, to have traveled a good deal and to have observed not a little. I have engaged in more than one business; it pleased my fancy, and can say, with a pardonable pride, that I have met with some degree of success. During the past few years of my life I have studied human nature in all its phases, from its lowest forms in the gutter, in the slums, in the gilded dens of vice, in the gambling...

The record of a career famous for adventure and vicissitude, and in which the jester won more tricks than the gamester.

• Preface
• Chapter I: Birth And Early Peregrinations
• Chapter II: Becoming A Patron Of The Pasteboards
• Chapter III: Early Times On The Mississippi
• Chapter IV: Getting A Sobriquet And Meeting Great Men
• Chapter V: The Turnpikes, The Packets And The Inns
• Chapter VI: Initiated In The Sons Of Malta
• Chapter VII: From The Green Mountains To Pike's Peak
• Chapter VIII: With The Bold Soldier Boys
• Chapter IX: The Fraternity Of Gamesters
• Chapter X: To Point A Moral And Adorn A...

This is essentially a small excerpt from Quinn's primary work Fools of Fortune. A couple of chapters have been taken, some incomplete, together with endorsements and other promotional material, to produce this volume.

1st edition 1895; PDF 68 pages.

An underground classic, now available as an ebook! This amazingly insightful book, written by a newspaper reporter, contains full details of gambling devices and methods used by professionals to beat and cheat casinos and other players.

Also described and illustrated are rigged carnival and gambling games, card gambling games, marked cards, holdouts, and much, much more.

Not content to describe methods that others may also have exposed, Meyer went the extra step to purchase the rights to gambling systems that sold for as much as $25 each. These are also detailed, in their various author's...

Here is a rare treat. A fascinating, inside look at how carnival midway cheats, street gangs, road hustlers, rigged racebooks, marriage bureau scammers, 'wildcat' oil frauds and many more were brought to justice by the author, a Chicago police detective.

Many of these scams are still in use today. Don't read this ebook to cheat -- instead, read it for protection so you don't become the next victim.

Colorfully written, this massive book is a true-life encyclopedia of scams, cons, swindles, ruses, devices and methods - and how the cheaters were taken down and brought to justice.

Includes...

Blistr is a new card punch with two important differences to more traditional card punches. First, it is built like a pair of small pliers and therefore very easy to use. The pliers are a flexure design 3D printed from carbon reinforced nylon. (Starting design was created by BYU Compliant Mechanisms Research which I modified to fit my needs.) Second, this punch creates a bigger smoother blister than needle based punches. The tip is not sharp and therefore does not punch trough the playing card. For many this will be easier to feel than a fine needle prick. The blister is a half dome with about 1 mm in diameter....

The classic 1941 treatise on the grifter's short-change con, now available again. Don't let it happen to you!

Short-changing is is used by unscrupulous ticket takers, food vendors, carnival workers, clerks, cashiers - anywhere that money changes hands. This ebook contains the "inside dope" on how it works and how to protect yourself from becoming a victim.

Described are various short-changing techniques, including the Bar Room Clip, Carnival and Circus Take and the Bill Slip-Over.

Original copies of this privately printed book are extremely hard to find. A recent copy sold at auction...

Any red showing loses!

The spot game is the black widow of the midway because an untrained player has little chance to cover the red spot using the five zinc plates supplied. Rules: the player must drop the plates one at a time from a distance of at least an inch attempting to cover the entire red area. He is later allowed to drop fewer plates bettering his chances of winning.

The spot game is seldom seen these days because law enforcement consider it to be beyond the possibility of chance. It is an excellent aid to the magician, especially when combined with a demonstration of a short...

Scores of street scams, swindles, and card table ruses are explained in this 163 page ebook, guaranteed to separate a sucker from his money just as quickly today as when this tome was first written in the mid-1800s. Don't read this book to cheat -- instead, get it for protection so you don't become a victim.

This a fascinating study, filled with accounts of colorful, larger-than-life characters. Some were victims, others turned the tables and made suckers out of the swindlers. The author, "a reformed gambler," goes beyond playing cards to detail the inside work on thimbles (the precursor...

This is probably the best short-change swindle every created. In his younger years, Devin Knight worked at a carnival doing Robert Nelson's Horoscope Pitch. During his stint with the carnival, he met a professional short-change artist, who showed him the most ingenious short-change scam Devin had ever seen. It made the scammer $10.00 every time he walked into a store and bought an inexpensive item.

Devin was familiar with the sometimes crude short-change methods used by carnies, but he had never seen a swindle as sophisticated as this one. The scammer would very slowly and deliberately count...