The Sharper Detected and Exposed

His infallible system--His agreeable manners--A Roulette player --Confidences--Revelations--In vein, and out of vein--The maturity of chances--Advice to players--Maxims--Influen...

The amateur of precious stones--What a beautiful diamond!--A sovereign cure--Ah! if I were a rogue--A false paste ring!-- The game is played--The tell-tale stamp investigation--...

A young fool--Envy and covetousness--Aphorisms--Insinuations --Confidences--Influencing the game--Honest men are sometimes rogues--Mushrooms and cheating--The Greek moralist--Ex...

Arrangement of the pack--_Coups de piquet_--How to repique and capot an adversary--How to repique and capot an adversary, although he has shuffled the cards--Abstraction and sub...

Whatever, dear reader, may be the value you attach to the knowledge of the knaveries I am about to reveal to you, you will assuredly never pay so dearly for them as I have.

Let me in the first place explain to my readers, why the compatriots of Homer and Plato have been thus honoured, or rather dishonoured, and how it comes that the word "Greek" ha...

He is generally a man of the world, whose dress and manners leave nothing to be desired. If he does not dazzle by the brilliancy of his conversation, it is that he does not wish...

The Greek of the middle classes, otherwise termed the nomad Greek, on account of his ubiquity, is a sort of chain or link between the aristocratic sharper, and him of the low ga...

It may with truth be said, that the Greek of low life is a sort of vulgar imitation of the two other types that I have just been describing, and, if I may be allowed to draw the...

And, supposing he were caught in the very act of cheating, if it were in a private house, they would probably be content with making him disgorge his ill-gotten gains, and ignom...

His infallible system--His agreeable manners--A roulette player --Confidences--Revelations--In vein, and out of vein--The maturity of chances--Advice to players--Maxims--Influen...

Raymond kept his promise. He came to me the following day; and, after I had made my arrangements, so that no one should interrupt us, I asked him to begin his story.

When Raymond entered the prison of "Sainte Pélagie" he was an isolated being in Paris. On his exit it was different; Andréas had friends who also became the friends of Raymond,...

The three associates at first always worked together, and made some good hits in several of the gambling houses in the metropolis; but finding at length, that, as the number of...

There was a physician, living at St. Omer, who had an irresistible love of gambling, and the proposal made by Chauvignac was, that they should relieve him of some thousands of f...

The amateur of precious stones--What a beautiful diamond!--A sovereign cure--Ah! if I were a rogue--A false paste ring!-- The game is played--The tell-tale stamp investigation--...

A young fool--Envy and covetousness--Aphorisms--Insinuations --Confidences--Influencing the game--Honest men are sometimes rogues--Mushrooms and cheating--The Greek moralist--Ex...

In all games of cards, it is the custom for the dealer, when he has done shuffling, to present the pack of cards to his adversary to cut: it is a sort of guarantee of good faith...

The reader who is uninitiated in the mysteries of sleight of hand, will probably think it incredible, not to say impossible, that a Greek can thus transpose invisibly the arrang...

All sharpers are cunning, clever, and tricky, but they do not all possess the same facility for tricks of sleight of hand. Many of them not being able to accomplish the sliding...

The "cut above" is a very simple and clever trick, and it is astonishing, when one knows it, to think how easily people are deceived, and that it should not be discovered. Howev...

It is to have one card larger than all the rest. When introduced into a pack this card, by its projection, almost forces the pack to divide, wherever the person who places it wi...

As in the preceding examples, it is used to make a false cut, and thus to retain the cards as they have been arranged by the sharper to enable him to win.

Let us suppose that, in dealing the cards, the Greek discovers, by means which I will hereafter explain, that the card he is going to give to his adversary would be advantageous...

When one has not been initiated into the mysteries of sleight-of-hand, it is difficult to believe that a sharper can abstract several cards, and put them back again, under the v...

Once in possession of the cards which he has abstracted, the Greek, whether the game he is playing be Lansquenet, Baccarat, or Vingt-et-un, replaces them in the pack in such a w...

One of his little fingers is slipped into the pack, where the card he wishes to see, lies; quick as lightning he glances his eye across it, and with such rapidity is the action...

A sharper has always under his coat, at the back of his trowsers, one or more little pockets, termed _finettes_, in which are carried the packs of cards he intends substituting...

There is yet another way of changing the pack, under the very eyes of your adversary. It consists in having a tin box fastened to your arm, under the sleeve of your coat, and wh...

It may be said that a false shuffle is not cheating, since the cards are but retained in their original order. Such acts, however, are not far removed from cheating, and the per...

The arranged shuffle consists in pretending to shuffle, whilst all the time you are arranging the cards, in the order you require them for cheating. Let us suppose, for example,...

The partial shuffle is employed for those games, where only a portion of the cards is distributed at a time, such as Écarté. In this instance, we will suppose the Greek to have...

The following trick is termed the Fan, because the Greek, to do the false shuffle, spreads the cards out in the shape of a fan. He then divides the pack into two parts, holding,...

The ways of doing the false shuffle are numerous, each Greek having some special method of his own. All of them are more or less derived from the principles I have just described.

The Biseautée Card was one of the principal methods of cheating in the last century. The trick, at that period, was only known to the adepts of the higher ranks, and with it the...

When white cards are not of first-rate quality, many of them are slightly tinted or stained; that is to say, the purity of the white varies. This imperfection is caused by the b...

By the foregoing it will be observed, that a Greek is always ready to profit by the slightest differences in the cards; but what my readers will scarcely find credible is, that...

I was once requested by a magistrate, to examine some packs of cards which had been seized in a gambling-house, and many of which had been used for the game of Vingt-et-un. I ac...

With the point of a pin, a little blunted, he pricks the card in the corner at the side of the picture, so as to produce a minute elevation on the upper surface.

Each time that a card which will be favourable to his play, passes through the hands of the Greek, he makes a small dent with his nail on the edge of it. This mark is easily fel...

When the Greek observes any cards, which will suit him to perform the trick he is about to play, he makes, at the bottom of the left-hand corner, a little fold, or arch, inwards...

It often happens that, in packs of playing-cards, the backs of which are ornamented with figures and designs, these ornaments are not placed exactly in the same spot on each card.

This trick of marking cards, is equal to any of the most refined abbreviations used in stenography, as here, by the aid of a single spot, any one of the thirty-two cards in the...

The rosary is a particular arrangement of the cards, according to certain words in a sentence, which is learnt by heart. In other words, it is a sort of mnemonics, or artificial...

The ring, shown in figure 24, is known by the name of a _trépan_. It is hollow, and forms a kind of reservoir, which is filled with very liquid ink. This liquid would escape by...

The Greek, when placing himself at the table to play, puts down a snuff-box, on the lid of which is a small medallion of the size of a franc, enclosing a miniature.

Arrangement of the pack--Coups de piquet--How to repique and capot an adversary--How to repique and capot an adversary although he has shuffled the cards--Abstraction and substi...

In taking up the pack of cards, the juggler, with a pretended awkwardness, shuffles the cards in such a manner, that many of them are turned face to face. This enables him, unde...

In playing the first hand, the Greek must secure a _sixième-major_ (or sequence of six cards from the ace downwards, which counts sixteen), a quatorze of aces (the four aces), a...

In former days, it was the fashion at piquet, when the deal was finished, to divide the _talon_ into two unequal packets, and place them one on the top of the other, in the shap...

When speaking of a swindler, people are apt to say, "He is a man who turns up the king whenever he pleases." This is a decided error. A Greek, if he is clever, will never do any...

From the preceding tricks, it will be seen that it is necessary for the Greek, before he begins playing, to put a certain number of cards into the pack, both at the top and unde...

When it is his turn to deal, he leans forward on the table, and, in so doing, brings his hand as near as possible to his "portées;" thus he can, when he pleases, take them out,...

It may be imagined, that in a game where there are four people playing, cheating is impracticable, since the cards the sharper ought to deal, are collected and shuffled by anoth...

I shall now present to my readers, a series of what may be termed entertaining tricks; they are done in such a way that a juggler may, whilst amusing his spectators, show them h...

You then take up, with apparent indifference, the three cards of your discard, which you have left close to yourself, and place them under the two first cards; then, by a false...

"The _vole_ and the king. I mark three; it is your turn to deal," presenting the pack to your adversary; and, at the same time, drawing out five or six cards which you keep hidd...

Thus, as I have just explained, in collecting the cards, you select a _sixième-major_ in whichever suit you please, put it at the bottom of the pack, and add in succession the f...

1. The queen of hearts. 2. The ace of hearts. 3. The king of hearts. 4. The knave of hearts. 5. The ten of hearts. 6. The nine of hearts. 7. The king of diamonds. 8. The seven o...

1. A nine. 2. A court card. 3. A nine. 4. A court card. 5. A nine. 6. A court card. 7. A nine. 8. A court card. 9. An eight. 10. An ace. 11. An eight. 12. An ace. 13. An eight....

1. The four last cards. 2. Three chance cards. 3. The three last cards. 4. Three chance cards. 5. The three last cards. 6. Three chance cards. 7. Three last cards. 8. Three chan...

1st. Having taken the thirteen cards in your right hand, put the last one on the top of the packet of the thirty-nine others, which you hold in your left hand.

All the cards must be separated in suits, namely: hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, one of each alternately, without reference as to their being high or low in their classifi...

A false shuffle, and false cut; when you deal, you will have in your hand four cards of the same sort, whilst your adversaries will only hold what chance has given them, which,...

1. The two last cards. 2. The third, the sixth and the ninth before the last. 3. The last card. 4. The second, the fourth and the sixth before the last. 5. The four last cards.

A curious Game at Bézigue, in which, with a single hand of Thirty-two Cards, you make, at the first "coup," five hundred and ten points, without your Adversary having been able...

1. Ace of diamonds. 2. King of diamonds. 3. Queen of diamonds. 4. Ten of clubs. 5. Nine of clubs. 6. Eight of clubs. 7. Knave of diamonds. 8. Ten of diamonds. 9. Ace of spades....

In which you allow your adversary to choose:--1st. In what suit he would like to be capoted and repiqued; 2nd. Whether he wishes to have the cards dealt to him by twos or by thr...

In the ordinary affairs of life, it is easy to know the difference between honesty and roguery: conscience and the laws have traced a line of demarcation, about which all right-...