... and other practices like the same; a myrror very necessary for all young gentilmen and other sodenly enabled by worldly abundance, to loke in. Newly set forth for theire behoufe.
This work contains a vivid description of the tricks and practices in vogue amongst gamblers of the sixteenth century. Written by a Puritan preacher, it is a scathing critique of the gambling culture during Elizabethan England and the moral outrage surrounding it. It has many curious allusions to the manners and customs of the period. Featuring firsthand accounts of dice games and their negative societal effects....
This is a compilation of two booklets that gambling house supply companies sold. The first part, Master Key, describes various ways playing cards can be marked. Illustrations of many marking methods and systems are included. Some of these methods go under the names of shade, glaze, block-out, line, build-up, trim, sorts, etch, swell natural or edge work, and others. The author of this section is unknown. It appears to be culled from various gambling house supply catalogs.
The second part, Run-Up Systems, was culled without credit from S. W. Erdnase's famous book The Expert at the Card Table. It explains several methods of stacking...
This is one of the earliest works describing card artifice. It describes how unsuspecting folks, and even those who are careful, are being lured into playing cards. Once they play, they are easy prey for card advantage players.
For example, a simple card trick is used and then explained to get the trust of the mark. The trick exposed is "The Three Knaves", where three knaves magically gather together after a cut even though one was returned to the top of the deck, the second to the middle, and the third to the bottom.
The subtitle reads:
Now daily practiced by sundry lewd persons called...
Knowledge of how confidence men and cheats operate is undeniably the best personal defense against them, and Eugene Villiod, the Parisian private detective, exposes about all we need to know for self-protection - and does so entertainingly. All the important cheats including short-changing, pickpocketing, three card monte, and others are covered.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this book, which was published in its original French edition in 1922, is that the same swindles are not only still with us today but that they are also perpetrated in the same ways.
Translated from the French...
Translation of La Machine à Voler, a French classic revealing the legal circumvention of gambling laws to establish crooked gambling clubs and casinos. It also exposes cheating methods for baccarat.
This work is primarily interesting to the magician due to its exposure of cheating methods at baccarat including sleight-of-hand techniques. These are explained in detail including photos.
Excerpt from the preface:
Read this book, read it carefully. The man who wrote it, though lacking in talent, is sure of what he says, and says nothing he can’t prove. Once having read the book, go to the casino and look...
Containing a complete disclosure of the secrets of the art, as practiced by professional gamblers.
The author only identifies themselves as 'An Adept'. It covers a wide range of gambling scams, and crooked card games, including card table artifice. The information is relevant today and describes the multivarious ways marks are separated from their money.
This video may not be magic, but it showcases some of the most astonishing blackjack cheating moves ever captured. You won't be disappointed. It demonstrates exactly how each move is executed, featuring cheating moves from both the outside and inside. Filmed from surveillance and floorman's perspectives, it offers a comprehensive view of the action in the blackjack pit. Watch the video and see if you can spot the move before it is explained. These are all sleight of hand moves, no electronics.
Moves shown and explained:
Gaffed games, clever cons, sensational swindles - how to spot the bunco artist before he cheats you.
This may well be the greatest exposé of gambling methods, swindles, confidence games and carnival midway hustles ever published. No matter if you're a magician, gambler, carnival midway patron (or operator), law enforcement professional, or simply want to protect yourself, you're going to enjoy this book.
Especially valuable to those with an interest in carnival and gaming paraphernalia are the methods used to gaff the devices as sold back in the day by H. C. Evans, K. C. Card Co., and...
An instructive warning to those who must play for stakes. Interesting amusement for those who do not.
Excerpt from the Foreword:
This book is an explanation of the fundamental principles upon which all card sharping is based. Once the main ideas are thoroughly understood, it becomes a comparatively easy matter to detect any subterfuge no matter how intricate.
This book is nicely illustrated by Charles Remmers from photographs by the author. It contains a description of cheating at the popular Australian game of Two-Up which makes it unique.
Being an explanation of the game, and a warning against its dangers.
Excerpt from the preface:
A good deal of public curiosity has been of late aroused respecting the game of Baccarat. The present work is designed, in the first place, to satisfy such curiosity by giving an explanation of the game and a statement of its laws. But it has also a second object. There is perhaps no game which so lends itself to the arts of the card-sharper as Baccarat, and if it be true that "in vain the net is spread in sight of any bird," an exposition of the frauds to which the honest player is liable should...
A translation of Les Trickeries des Grecs by M. Robert-Houdin, one of the most valuable and interesting works on the subject of card sharping.
Excerpt from the preface:
Meanwhile, the march of science has continued, and the arts of deception, like other arts, have received many new developments. There are fashions in fraud, as in more innocent matters. I have endeavoured in the present pages not only to offer a faithful translation of Robert-Houdin's text, but by the aid of notes to bring down his work, so to speak, to present date. In so doing I have to acknowledge special obligation...
The dark side of gambling.
"Loaded with rare, inside information." - Darwin Ortiz
"Absolutely fascinating and enlightening! Ingenious methods that boggle the mind." - Daryl
"Inside techniques exposed for the first time in print." - George Joseph / Director of Surveillance, Bally Entertainment Co.
It may be shocking and it's certainly dangerous. Nevertheless, this unique ebook represents the definitive resource on how professional con men cheat at Blackjack and other card games. The author, a former high-stakes cheater, explains an amazing array of specific moves with clear, understandable text and...
"Must reading for all card magicians!" - Allan Ackerman
"Outstanding!" - Darwin Ortiz
"This book should be on your shelf alongside The Expert at the Card Table, The Man Who Was Erdnase, The Annotated Erdnase, and Loaded Dice." - William P. Miesel
His name is not "Marks," but when you buy this ebook you will learn why he had to write under an alias. The ebook covers advantage play, cheating, and the moves that get the money.
"Exceptional. Controversial. Highly recommended." - Michael Dalton / Blackjack Review
"WOW! The real world of cheating and the plays that get the money." - Bob Snyder / Gaming Consultants
A wonderfully interesting confession of a con man who was a contemporary of Erdnase, and just like him operated for a time while traveling with small circuses in Illinois and surrounding states. Of particular interest is a full dialog of how an unsuspecting person on the train was lured into gambling 3 card monte. The dialog demonstrates how skillfully these operatives were and how well they understood human nature. Other cons are also described in detail.
Excerpt from the preface:
When these confessions appeared serially, friends and distant enquirers took it for granted that they were fiction;...
A complete revelation of the cheaters' work at Bridge, Nap, Solo, Bluff, Banker, Baccarat, Faro, etc.
Published by Coe & Co. A rare booklet offered at the first 2023 Ricky Jay auction with an estimated price of $500-$800. Excerpt from the introduction:
In introducing this little book to the public it is my intention and desire to expose the multiplicity of ways by which cheating at cards is accomplished. The average honest player is little suspicious of the enormous amount of cheating that is done, but what would astonish him still more would be to learn the simple tricks used by even the...
At one point it was believed that only one copy of this book existed. This and other myths are addressed in the introduction by Frank Lehmann, who has studied this book in detail.
The book exposes various ways in which the game of Faro was crooked. It was a very popular betting game in the United States and usually was rigged in one way or another. It was published by Richard K. Fox, the proprietor of the Police Gazette.
A play-by-play exposé of the tricks of the card sharp's trade.
Moss gives general advice on how to avoid becoming a sucker or losing more money than luck alone would explain. The most interesting part is where he describes several sleights and strategies cardsharps use to cheat at the card table. Many of the sleights are illustrated with photos.
Full exposition of all the various arts, mysteries, and miseries of gambling.
It is a complete exposure, of the different and various ways of deception and cheating in all the numerous games played, such as Faro, Two, Three, and Four-Handed Poker, Shuffling Cards, Roulette and Rolling Faro, Vingt-Un, Brag, Euchre, Game of Boston, All Fours, Cribbage, Whist, Dice, Stealing out Cards, Palming, Playing by Signs, Marking Cards, Backgammon, Solitaire, Playing Three against One, Spring Tables, Spring Boxes, Pulleys, Ingenuity of Gamblers, Card Manufactories, Lotteries, then modes of drawing and...
You will find here card tricks, cheating exposes, card games, and gambling stories.
A later expanded version of this book was published under the title Gamblers' Tricks With Cards Exposed and Explained.
Mr. T is an underground gambler, the man who wrote the Pro Guide to the Lucky Log, and the exclusive manual for "Bingo Bango". Now he brings you A Sweet and Simple Swindle. Two of them actually, because the PDF includes an additional bonus swindle with playing cards.
Both dead easy to do, no sleight of hand, no complicated tactics, just a sweet advantage to you, where the mark will believe they have the better of you all along. No marked cards or anything of the sort, both of these use a regular deck of playing cards that can be borrowed, so easy a kid could take advantage of this ... if...
This ebook presents an analytical review of works on card cheating that are written in English and published before 1900. Given this scope, The Reference Guide to Early Works on Card Cheating takes 151 publications, and documents the card cheating techniques that they describe. Only card techniques discussed in the context of cheating at card games are considered. The 146 defined techniques are used to evaluate the publications based on their breadth and their contribution to the literature. The breadth is indicated by the absolute number of techniques each work describes, and the contribution...
The intentionally unassuming grey cover, designed to match the dull-sounding title, suggests a dry emotionless record of events is likely held within. However, this humble exterior belies the valuable secrets hidden within its pages. Annals of Gaming was an article series published over four years, between 1772 and 1775; its sole intention was to expose the sharpers, hustlers, and cheats, by detailing their methods of defrauding the unwary. Now, for the first time, every article in the original series has been retyped in full and published in a single volume of over 200 pages. This work covers over...