Card Games Played In Casinos

Last Updated: January 4, 2021 References Casino, also known as “Cassino”, is a popular card game best played with 2-4 players. The object of the game is to capture cards from a layout of face-up cards on the table, but the process can be tricky, especially for beginners. May 24, 2019 Casino poker is always played for table stakes, meaning you cannot bet more than you have on the table in chips at the time. In some casinos, $100 bills play if they are on the table, but check first before assuming this is true. Remember to tip. Poker dealers and waitresses make a living on tips. Read more about tipping poker dealers here.

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This page is partly based on contributions from Kim Scarborough, Janet Levy, Scott Grengs and Rachel Hooley. The historical introduction draws on an article by Franco Pratesi: Casino from Nowhere to Vaguely Everywhere (originally published in The Playing-Card Vol XXIV No 1 July/Aug 1995 pages 6-11)

Introduction

Oct 27, 2020 If you’ve not played before, baccarat is one casino card game that will absolutely make the cut when you’re next heading into a brick-and-mortar establishment. It’s not a game that a huge number of people know how to play, but with a rapid learning-curve, it won’t be long until it stands as your favorite game on the casino floor. There’s bound to be a lot of disagreement about what the best games in the casino are. After all, different gamblers have different preferences. I might enjoy playing blackjack because I count cards, while you might play slot machines because you don’t want to have to think about what you’re doing. Across the world's casinos you will find a wide selection of table games like blackjack, three card poker, roulette, and baccarat. Blackjack is the most popular table game due to its low house edge and simple gameplay. In many Asian countries, meanwhile, players love the simple game of baccarat or popular dice games like Sic Bo.

Casino is the only fishing game to have become popular in English speaking countries. Although it is traditionally supposed to have originated in Italy, there is no direct evidence of it having been played there, at least under that name, though many other Italian fishing games are known. Casino first appears in the card game literature at the end of the eighteenth century in London, and shortly afterwards in Germany. In the late nineteenth century it became fashionable in America and a number of new variations were developed. There is a dispute about the correct spelling of the name - the earliest sources use the spelling Casino, but a tradition has grown up among later writers to spell it with a double 's': Cassino.

The aim in Casino is to capture cards from a layout of face up cards on the table. A card is captured by playing a matching card from hand. It is also possible to capture several cards at once if their values add up to the value of the card played. Captured cards are stored face down in front of the player who captured them and scored at the end of the play. Cards from hand can also be combined with table cards into builds, which can only be captured as a unit.

This page describes the most usual Anglo-American version of Casino in which picture cards, not having a numerical value, can only capture an equal picture. There are many variants in which picture cards also have numerical values. In English-speaking countries this type of game is known as Royal Casino, and interesting versions of it are popular in various parts of the world. On other pages of this site there are descriptions of:

Royal Casino and the version played in the Dominican Republic, which features different scoring in the endgame;
Casino in Southern Africa (Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa), where cards can be from opponents' capture piles can be reused in builds;
Casino (Kasino) in Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway and Finland) which is usually played without building;
Krypkasino, a reverse variant from Sweden in which the aim is to avoid capturing cards.

We would like to thank the following partner sites for their support:

Since 2017, the website casinotopp.net has been helping Norwegian gamers to find safe places to play online. Reza Shojaei and his team of writers at Value Marketing in Oslo aim to provide objective reviews of online casinos and slots and all the information needed for players to find the casino that suits them best. In 2019 the English language partner site casinotop.com was opened, where journalists and copywriters from the Malta office provide a similar service for the Canadian market.

Ionut Marin's Casino Bonus CA was launched in 2018 to provide up to date information in English and French on casino bonuses and offers in Canada.

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Players and Cards

The game works best with from 2 to 4 players, though in theory more could take part. It has the distinction of being one of the few games which will deal out evenly to two, three, or four players. Four players can play in partnerships, two against two, with partners sitting opposite each other.

A regular 52 card deck is used. Each numeral card (ace-ten) is counted as its numerical value (ace = 1, two = 2, etc). Picked up cards are accumulated in a pile to be counted at the end of the round.

The Deal

The dealer deals four cards to each player and four cards face up in the centre (these centre cards are laid out separately so that all are visible). Traditionally, the deal is in twos: two cards to each other player, two to the table, then two to the dealer, then repeat. However, some players prefer to deal the cards singly. The remainder of the deck is temporarily put aside. After everyone has played their four cards, another hand of four cards is dealt to each player from the remaining cards, but no more cards are dealt to the table after the first deal. After these cards have been played there is another deal, and this continues until all 52 cards have been dealt (this takes 6 deals for 2 players, 4 deals for three players, 3 deals for 4 players). The dealer must announce 'last' when dealing the last cards. After the last cards have been played and the hand scored, the deal passes to the left for the next round.

The Play

Starting with the player to the left of the dealer and continuing clockwise, each player in turn must play one card out from hand face up on the table. This card may or may not capture one or more cards from the table.

In case of a capture, when the other players have had an opportunity to see the capturing card, the player picks up this card and the captured cards and stores them all face down in a pile.
If there is no capture the played card remains face up on the table.

Irrespective of whether a capture was made or not, the turn passes to the next player.

In detail, the possible types of play are as follows:

1. Capturing with a face card

If the card played is a face card (king, queen or jack) which matches the rank of a face card on the table, the face card on the table may be captured. This is the only possible capture with a face card. If the table contains more than one matching card only one may be captured.

Example:The Q and Q are on the table, and the Q is played. The player may capture one of the queens from the table but not both.

2. Capturing with a numeral card

A numeral card (Ace, 2, ..., 10) can capture any numeral cards on the table which are of the same rank as the card played, and any sets of numeral cards which add up to the rank of the card played, with the following restrictions:

cards which are part of a build (see below) can only be captured by a card of the rank announced for that build;
when sets are captured, each captured card can only be counted as belonging to one such set.

Example If an eight is played it could capture one, two or three eights from the table. It could also capture a five and a three, or a four and two twos. If the following cards are on the table: A 2 3 5 6 8, then an eight could capture 8 6 2 5 3 or 8 5 2 A, but not all six cards.

3. Building

A numeral card may be played and combined with other cards on the table, placing them together to form a build. A build can be made out of any collection of numeral cards which can be captured by a single numeral card according to rule 2 above. The player making the build must announce the capturing number (saying, for example, 'building 5'), and must hold a numeral card which can later make the capture. There are two types of build: single builds and multiple builds.

A single build consists of two or more cards whose capture values add up to the capture value of the build - for example a 5-build made of a 2 and a 3, or a 10-build made of A-4-5.
A multiple build consists of two or more cards or sets of cards, each of which equates to the capture value of the build - for example a 5-build made of a 2 and a 3 plus a 4 and an ace, or a 5-build made of A-4 and 5, or a 9-build made of two nines, or a 9-build made of 6-3 plus 5-4 plus 9.

When you make a build, it must include the card you just played - you cannot create a build consisting entirely of cards that were already on the table. Cards which have been made into a build can subsequently only be captured as a unit, never separately.

Examples

If there is a 5 on the table, a player holding a 3 and an 8 may put the 3 on the 5 and announce 'building 8'; this single build can now only be captured by an 8.
If there is an ace and a two on the table, a player holding two threes and a six could play one of the threes and either:
1. capture the two and the ace;
2. combine the played three with the ace and the two and make a single build, announcing 'building 6';
3. combine the played three with the ace and the two and make a multiple build, announcing 'building 3';
It would not be legal to play the three on the ace, building four, or on the two, building five, as the player does not hold a four or a five.

4. Capturing a build

A build can be captured by playing a numeral card of the rank which was announced when the build was made. It is thus possible to 'steal' a build created by another player, if you have the right numeral card.

If on your turn, the table contains a build which you created or added to yourself, and no other player has added to it since your last turn, you are not allowed simply to trail a card (as in rule 6) on your next turn. You must either make a capture of some kind, create another build, or add to a build (i.e. follow rule 3, 4 or 5). It is always possible to capture in this situation - if nothing else, you must hold the capturing card for the build you just made, otherwise your build was illegal.

If there is a build on the table, and you were the last player to add a card to this build, you are not allowed to play so as to leave yourself with no card equal to the value of this build.

While capturing a build, you can also capture any loose cards on the table that add up to the same number. For example you have made a build of 9 and there is a 5 on the table. If the player before you plays a 4, you can capture the 4 and the 5 at the same time that you take in your build.

It is not possible to capture a build with a card of any other rank than that announced for the build. For example the table contains a 4 and a 3 combined into a build of 7, plus a separate 2. You cannot play a 9 to take the build of 7 plus the 2 - the build can only be captured with a 7.

Another example. If the table contains a 5 and a player plays another 5 on it, they must either announcing 'building 10' to create a single build or 'building 5' to create a multiple build. If 'building 10' was announced the build can only be captured by a 10, not by a 5. If 'building 5' was announced, the build can only be captured by a 5, not by a 10.

5. Adding to a build

There are two ways of adding to a build:

You may add a card from your hand to a single build, increasing the capturing number, provided that you also hold a card which will capture the new build. At the same time you may incorporate additional cards from the table into the build, if they are equal to the new capturing number. In this case the build will become multiple. You can never use a card from the table to change the value of a single build.
Example A The table contains a build consisting of two threes, announced as a build of six. If you hold a two and an eight, you can add the two to the build announcing 'building 8'. The next player, holding an ace and a nine, could then add the ace and say 'building 9'.
The capturing number of a multiple build can never be changed. If the original build of two threes in the above example had been announced as building three (rather than building six), it would not be possible for a player holding a two and a five to add the two to the build, making five, not for a player holding a two and an eight to add the two making eight.
Example B The table contains an ace, a two and a four; the ace and the four have been combined by a previous player into a build of five. You hold a three, an eight and a ten. You can play your three onto the single five-build and announce 'building eight', but you are not allowed to incorporate the two from the table into this build to make it a build of ten.
Example C The table contains a three and a four, built into a seven, and a separate nine. You hold a two and a nine. You can play your two, combining it with the seven-build to make nine, and at the same time incorporate the nine on the table into the build, converting it to a multiple build and saying 'building nine'.
You may add to any build, single or multiple, by playing a card from your hand which, either alone or combined with other cards on the table which are not yet in builds, matches the existing capture number of the build, provided that you hold a card which can capture the combined build.
Example The table contains a 9-build consisting of a 5 and a 4, and there is also a 3 on the table. You hold a six and two nines. You can play your 6, combining it with the 3 and the existing build to make a new multiple build of 9. Then on your next turn (provided that no one else captured) you could add one of the nines from your hand to the build. Finally, on the following turn, you could capture the whole build with your second nine.

Note that when making or adding to a build, you must contribute a card to it from your hand. You cannot just combine various cards which are already on the table to form a build. Note also that once a build contains more than one card or sets of cards which add to the capturing number, it is a multiple build and the capturing number can no longer be changed.

Example. There is a multiple 8-build of 3-5-8 on the table, and there is also a loose 6 on the table. In your hand you have 2, 8, 8, 10. You may add one of your 8s to the build, making 3-5-8-8, or to add your 2 together with the 6 on the table, making 3-5-8-2-6, still with capture value 8. You cannot use your 2 to change the capture value to 10.

6. Trailing

If you simply play a card without building or capturing, the card is placed face up on the table alongside any other layout cards and remains there to be captured or built on in future. It is then the next player's turn. Playing a card without building or capturing is sometimes called trailing. You are allowed to trail a card even if that card could have made a capture.

Example Suppose that in a four player partnership game your partner has two tens and you have one. Your partner plays a 10 and the next player does not take it. On your turn, if you suspect that your partner has a second 10, you can play your 10 and not capture, leaving both tens on the table for your partner.

The only case in which trailing is not allowed is when there is a build on the table which you were the last player to add to.

When all the cards have been played in the final deal, the last player who made a capture also wins any cards which are left on the table (these cards are sometimes known as the residue). That is why it is important that the dealer should announce 'last' when dealing the last cards.

Hint on tactics: it is often good for the dealer to hold back a face card to play last if possible; this will capture a matching face card on the table and thereby also win any other table cards that remain.

Scoring

Each player (or team) counts their score based on the pile of cards they have won. There are eleven possible points in each hand:

whoever has the Most Cards gets three points;
whoever has Most Spades is one point;
each Ace is worth one point (capturing an ace with another ace is called 'cash' by some players)
the ten of diamonds, called Big Casino or the Good Ten, is worth two points;
the two of spades, called Little Casino or the Good Two, is worth one point.

If there is a tie for most cards or most spades, no one gets those points.

Whoever first reaches a total of 21 or more points, over however many rounds it takes, wins the game. If two people reach the target on the same round, whoever has the higher score wins. If there is a tie, another round is played.

Variations

Building Rules

Building is the most intricate part of the game, and there are several variations in exactly what is allowed when creating or capturing builds, and many of the card game books are ambiguous on this point. Some people play by more permissive rules, for example:

Some players allow a player to trail a card and simultaneously make a build by combining other cards on the table, not including the card played.
Some players allow a player who has a build on the table simply to trail a card on subsequent turns, leaving the build in place.
Some players allow cards from the table to be used to help increase the value of a single build, provided that a card from your hand is also used to increase the value. In this variation, in Example B under rule 5 above, it would be legal when playing your 3 on the 5-build to incorporate the 2 from the table as well, making a single build of 10. On the other hand, if there was a 6-build and a 3 on the table and you had two nines in your hand, it would not be legal to combine one of your nines with the six-build and the three to make a multiple build of nines, because when changing the value of a build, the card you play from your hand has to contribute to the change of value.
Some players treat a single build exactly like a single card of the same value, for the purpose of capturing it or extending the build. For example, if there is a build of 6 (5+A) on the table and a loose 4, a player who holds a 10 can capture the 6-build and the 4, and a player who holds two 10's can combine one 10 from hand with the 6-build and the 4 to make a multiple 10-build.

Sweeps

Many people play that a Sweep is worth one point. A sweep occurs when a player takes all the cards from the table, leaving it empty and forcing the next player to trail. Some players call this a clear. When making a sweep, the capturing card is stored face-up in the pile of won cards, so that the number of sweeps can be checked when scoring. It is possible to make a sweep with the last card of the final deal if it captures all the cards on the table, but if it does not, taking the remaining cards from the table because you made the last capture does not count as a sweep.

Scoring

Other targets for winning the game are possible:

Some play to 11 points. In a two player game (or a 4-player game with partners), in each round the player with more points scores the difference between the points made by the two players or sides.
Some play to 50 points.

Some people, instead of scoring three points for cards, award two points to the player with most cards and one point to the player who made the last capture during the game.

Some play that when deciding the overall winner, if more than one player or team reaches the target score in the same round, the points are counted in order: cards, spades, big casino, little casino, aces (in the order spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds), sweeps. If the aces are not sufficient to reach the target score then the player or team with more sweeps wins; if they have the same number of sweeps another hand is played to decide the winner.

Some players, when approaching the target score, count the points as they are earned - each sweep as it happens, aces, big and little casino as they are captured, and spades or cards as soon as one player has captured 7 or 27 of them respectively. In this case the play ends soon as a player correctly claims to have won by reaching the target score (even if the opponent has in fact scored more but failed to claim it). Some score sweeps as they happen, but the remaining points in a specific order, with an agreed order of suits for the aces.

Some books describe Spade Casino, a variant in which instead of counting a point for most spades, each spade counts 1 point and the jack of spades counts an extra point. The ace and two of spades still count an extra point as well, so that the total points available (excluding sweeps) are 24: cards (3) + ten of diamonds (2) + the four aces and the two and jack of spades (6) + the spades (13).

Other Variations

See also the pages on Royal Casino, African Casino, Nordic Casino and Krypkasino.

Software

With Mari J Michaelis's SpiteNET: Cassino computer program you can play against the computer or against a live opponent over the Internet.

You can download a freeware Casino program from Thanos Card Games.

Games4All has published a free Cassino app for the Android platform.

Carl Scafidi has published a free Casino app for iPhone or iPad.

Faro
Related games
Origin	France
Type	gambling
Skills required	counting
Cards	52
Deck	Anglo-American
Play	clockwise
Playing time	10–15 minutes
Random chance	medium
Baccarat, Basset, Tempeln

Faro (/ˈfɛəroʊ/FAIR-oh), Pharaoh, Pharao, or Farobank is a late 17th-century French gambling card game. It is descended from Basset, and belongs to the Lansquenet and Monte Bank family of games due to the use of a banker and several players. Winning or losing occurs when cards turned up by the banker match those already exposed.

It is not a direct relative of poker, but Faro was often just as popular due to its fast action, easy-to-learn rules, and better odds^[1] than most games of chance. The game of Faro is played with only one deck of cards and admits any number of players.

Popular in North America during the 1800s,^[2] Faro was eventually overtaken by poker as the preferred card game of gamblers in the early 1900s.^[3]

Variants include German Faro, Jewish Faro, and Ladies' Faro.

History[edit]

The earliest references to a card game named Pharaon (French for 'Pharaoh') are found in Southwestern France during the reign of Louis XIV. Basset was outlawed in 1691, and Pharaoh emerged several years later as a derivative of Basset, before it too was outlawed.^[4]

Despite the French ban, Pharaoh and Basset continued to be widely played in England during the 18th century, where it was known as Pharo, an English alternate spelling of Pharaoh.^[5] The game was easy to learn, quick, and when played honestly, the odds for a player were considered by some to be the best of all gambling games, as Gilly Williams records in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752.^[6]

With its name shortened to Faro, it spread to the United States in the 19th century to become the most widespread and popularly favored gambling game. It was played in almost every gambling hall in the Old West from 1825 to 1915.^[7] Faro could be played in over 150 places in Washington, D.C. alone during the Civil War.^[8] An 1882 study considered faro to be the most popular form of gambling, surpassing all others forms combined in terms of money wagered each year.^[4]

It was also widespread in the German states during the 19th century, where it was known as Pharao or Pharo. A simplified version played with 32 German-suited cards was known as Deutsches Pharao ('German Pharo') or Süßmilch. It is recorded in card game compendia from at least 1810 to 1975.

In the US, Faro was also called 'bucking the tiger' or 'twisting the tiger's tail', a reference to early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal tiger. By the mid 19th century, the tiger was so commonly associated with the game that gambling districts where faro was popular became known as 'tiger town', or in the case of smaller venues, 'tiger alley'.^[9] Some gambling houses would simply hang a picture of a tiger in their windows to advertise that a game could be played there.

Faro's detractors regarded it as a dangerous scam that destroyed families and reduced men to poverty because of rampant rigging of the dealing box. Crooked faro equipment was so popular that many sporting-house companies began to supply gaffed dealing boxes specially designed so that the bankers could cheat their players. (See section of cheating by dealers below.) Cheating was so prevalent that editions of Hoyle’s Rules of Games began their faro section by warning readers that not a single honest faro bank could be found in the United States. Criminal prosecutions of faro were involved in the Supreme Court cases of United States v. Simms, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803),^[10] and Ex parte Milburn, 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 704 (1835).^{[citation needed]}

Although the game became scarce after World War II, it continued to be played at a few Las Vegas and Reno casinos through 1985.^[11]

Etymology[edit]

Historians have suggested that the name Pharaon comes from Louis XIV's royal gamblers, who chose the name from the motif that commonly adorned one of the French-made court cards.^[5]

Rules[edit]

The layout of a faro board

Description[edit]

A game of faro was often called a 'faro bank'. It was played with an entire deck of playing cards. One person was designated the 'banker' and an indeterminate number of players, known as 'punters', could be admitted. Chips (called 'checks') were purchased by the punter from the banker (or house) from which the game originated. Bet values and limits were set by the house. Usual check values were 50 cents to $10 each.

The faro table was typically oval,^[12] covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one suit of cards (traditionally spades) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting 'layout'. Each player laid his stake on one of the 13 cards on the layout. Players could place multiple bets and could bet on multiple cards simultaneously by placing their bet between cards or on specific card edges. A player could reverse the intent of his bet by placing a hexagonal (6-sided) token called a 'copper' on it. Some histories said a penny was sometimes used in place of a copper. This was known as 'coppering' the bet, and reversed the meaning of the win/loss piles for that particular bet. Players also had the choice of betting on the 'high card' bar located at the top of the layout.

Procedure[edit]

A deck of cards was shuffled and placed inside a 'dealing box', a mechanical device also known as a 'shoe', which was used to prevent manipulations of the draw by the banker and intended to assure players of a fair game.
The first card in the dealing box was called the 'soda' and was 'burned off', leaving 51 cards in play. The dealer then drew two cards: the first was called the 'banker's card' and was placed on the right side of the dealing box. The next card after the banker's card was called the carte anglaise (English card) or simply the 'player's card', and it was placed on the left of the shoe.^[8]
The banker's card was the bettor's 'losing card'; regardless of its suit, all bets placed on the layout's card that had the same denomination as the banker's card were lost by the players and won by the bank. The player's card was the 'winning card'. All bets placed on the card that had that denomination were returned to the players with a 1 to 1 (even money) payout by the bank (e.g., a dollar bet won a dollar). A 'high card' bet won if the player’s card had a higher value than the banker’s card.^[9]
The dealer settled all bets after each two cards drawn. This allowed players to bet before drawing the next two cards. Bets that neither won nor lost remained on the table, and could be picked up or changed by the player prior to the next draw.
When only three cards remained in the dealing box, the dealer would 'call the turn', which was a special type of bet that occurred at the end of each round. The object now was to predict the exact order that the three remaining cards, Bankers, Players, and the final card called the Hock, would be drawn.^[8] The player's odds here were 5 to 1, while a successful bet paid off at 4 to 1 (or 1 to 1 if there were a pair among the three, known as a 'cat-hop'). This provided one of the dealer's few advantages in faro. If it happened that the three remaining cards were all the same, there would be no final bet, as the outcome was not in question.

Certain advantages were reserved to the banker: if he drew a doublet, that is, two equal cards, he won half of the stakes upon the card which equaled the doublet. In a fair game, this provided the only 'house edge'. If the banker drew the last card of the pack, he was exempt from doubling the stakes deposited on that card.^[13] These and the advantage from the odds on the turn bet provided a slight financial advantage to the dealer or house. To give themselves more of an advantage, and to counter the losses from players cheating, the dealers would also often cheat as well.^[4]

A device, called a 'casekeep' was employed to assist the players and prevent dealer cheating by counting cards. The casekeep resembled an abacus, with one spindle for each card denomination, with four counters on each spindle. As a card was played, either winning or losing, one of four counters would be moved to indicate that a card of that denomination had been played. This allowed players to plan their bets by keeping track of what cards remained available in the dealing box. The operator of the case keep is called the 'casekeeper', or colloquially in the American West, the 'coffin driver'.

Cheating[edit]

In a fair game the house's edge was low, so bankers increasingly resorted to cheating the players to increase the profitability of the game for the house. This too was acknowledged by Hoyle editors when describing how faro banks were opened and operated: 'To justify the initial expenditure, a dealer must have some permanent advantage.'^[4]

By dealers[edit]

Dealers employed several methods of cheating:

Stacked or rigged decks: A stacked deck would consist of many paired cards, allowing the dealer to claim half of the bets on that card, as per the rules. A rigged deck would contain textured cards that allowed dealers to create paired cards in the deck while giving the illusion of thorough shuffling.^[4]
Rigged dealing boxes: Rigged, or 'gaffed', dealing boxes came in several variants. Typically, they allowed the dealer to see the next card prior to the deal, by use of a small mirror or prism visible only to the dealer. If the next card was heavily bet, the box could also allow the dealer to draw two cards in one draw, thus hiding the card that would have paid.^[4] This would result in the casekeep not accounting for the hidden card, however. If the casekeeper were employed by the house, though, he could take the blame for 'accidentally' not logging that card when it was drawn.
Sleight of hand: In concert with the rigged dealing box, the dealer could, when he knew the next card to win, surreptitiously slide a player's bet off of the winning card if it was on the dealer's side of the layout. At a hectic faro table he could often get away with this, though it was obviously a risky move.

By players[edit]

Players would routinely cheat as well. Their techniques employed distraction and sleight-of-hand, and usually involved moving their stake to a winning card, or at the very least off the losing card, without being detected.^[4] Their methods ranged from crude to creative, and worked best at a busy, fast-paced table:

Simple move of their bet: The most basic cheat was simply to move one's bet to the adjacent card on the layout while avoiding the banker noticing. While the simplest, it also carried the greatest risk of detection.
Moving with a thread: A silk thread or single horse hair would be affixed to the bottom check in the bet, and allowed the stack to be pulled across the table to another card on the layout. This was less risky, as the cheating player would not have to make an overt action.
Removing the copper: A variant on the use of the thread was to affix it to the copper token used to reverse the bet. If the losing card matched the player's bet, the copper made it a winning bet and no cheat was needed. If, however, the winning card, dealt second, were to match the player's bet the copper would ordinarily make it a loser, but quickly snatching the copper from the stack with the invisible thread turned it into a winner. This held the least risk, as once the copper was yanked from the stack, there was no thread left attached to the bet.

Being caught cheating often resulted in a fight, or even gunfire.^[4]

In culture[edit]

Etymology[edit]

The old phrase 'from soda to hock', meaning 'from beginning to end' derives from the first and last cards dealt in a round of faro.^[14] The phrase evolved from the better known 'from soup to nuts'. In turn, 'soda' and 'hock' are probably themselves derived from 'hock and soda', a popular nineteenth-century drink consisting of hock (a sweet German wine) combined with soda water.

Geography[edit]

The town of Faro, Yukon was named after the game.^{[citation needed]}

History[edit]

The well-known author of Regency romances, Georgette Heyer, wrote a novel titled 'Faro's Daughter'; it tells of a young lady forced to deal faro to support her family and her ensuing romance with one of the gaming hall patrons (written 1941).

The 18th-century adventurer and author Casanova was known to be a great player of faro. He mentions the game frequently in his autobiography.
The 18th-century Prussian officer, adventurer, and author Friedrich Freiherr von der Trenck makes mention of playing faro in his memoirs (February 1726 – 25 July 1794).
The 18th-century Dutch cavalry commander Casimir Abraham von Schlippenbach (1682–1755) also mentions the game (as Pharaon) in his memoirs. Apparently, he was able to win considerable sums of money with the game.
The 18th century Whig radical Charles James Fox preferred faro to any other game.
The 19th-century American con man Soapy Smith was a faro dealer. It was said that every faro table in Soapy's Tivoli Club in Denver, Colorado, in 1889 was gaffed (made to cheat).
The 19th-century scam artist Canada Bill Jones loved the game so much that, when he was asked why he played at one game that was known to be rigged, he replied, 'It's the only game in town.'
The 19th-century lawman Wyatt Earp dealt faro for a short time after arriving in Tombstone, Arizona having acquired controlling interest in a game out of the Oriental Saloon.^[15]
The 19th-century dentist and gambler John 'Doc' Holliday dealt faro in the Bird Cage Theater as an additional source of income while living in Tombstone, Arizona.^[16]

In popular culture[edit]

The film Bucking the Tiger (1921) took its name from an alternate name for Faro

Literature and its adaptations

In Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat, the gambler Gaylord Ravenal specializes in the game of Faro.
Faro is mentioned extensively in John D. Fitzgerald's semi-autobiographical Silverlode/Adenville trilogy, which consists of the books Papa Married a Mormon, Mama's Boarding House, and Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse. It is one of the primary games played at the Whitehorse Saloon, owned by the character Uncle Will. In Mama's Boarding House the character Floyd Thompson, one of the tenants in the boarding house, is a Faro dealer.
Faro is also occasionally mentioned in Fitzgerald's corresponding Great Brain series, which focuses on the children of Adenville.
In Oliver La Farge's story 'Spud and Cochise' (1935), the cowboy Spud plays Faro when he is in a very good mood. Aware of the widespread dishonesty of American Faro dealers in his time, he nevertheless bets heavily, viewing his gambling losses as a form of charity.
In Jack London's novel White Fang, the owner of the bulldog, Tim Keenan, is a faro dealer.
In the Giulietta act of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann (based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann), Giulietta invites Schlemil to take his place at the table of Pharaoh.
In Massenet's opera Manon, the game at the Hotel Transylvania is faro, and Guillot accuses des Grieux and Manon of cheating at it.
Lord Ruthven in John William Polidori's 'The Vampyre' plays Faro in Brussels.
The miners in Puccini's opera La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West), based on David Belasco's play The Girl of the Golden West, play a contentious game of Faro in Act One.
Faro is central to the plot of Alexander Pushkin's story 'The Queen of Spades' and Tchaikovsky's opera adaptation, The Queen of Spades.
In Wesley Stace's Misfortune, the character 'Pharaoh' is named after his father's profession, a Faro dealer.
In Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, the main character runs a crooked faro bank, alternatively to his great fortune or ruin.
- In its film adaptation, Barry Lyndon, one of the famous candlelit scenes shows Barry and his employer cheating at Faro. In the background a Moorish servant holds a casekeep showing which cards have been played.
In a famous scene from Leo Tolstoy's book War and Peace, Nicholas Rostov loses 43,000 rubles to Dolokhov playing Faro.

Games

In the video game Assassin's Creed Unity (2014), the main character Arno Dorian, in the early stages of the game, plays a game of Faro with a blacksmith but loses after the blacksmith cheats. Arno loses his deceased father's pocket watch and breaks into the blacksmith's house to steal it back.

Radio and motion pictures

In the HBO TV series Deadwood, Al Swearengen mentions Faro, rather than poker, is played in his Gem Saloon, and Faro The game is referred to frequently throughout the series.
Numerous references to Faro are made in both the Westernradio drama Gunsmoke, starring William Conrad, and the television drama Gunsmoke starring James Arness.
The Murdoch Mysteries episode 'Staircase to Heaven' involves a murder during a game of Faro.
In the American western The Shootist (1976), Jack Pulford (Hugh O'Brian) is a professional gambler and a Faro dealer at the Metropole Saloon.
When planning The Sting on New York gangster Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), one of the conmen researching their mark mentions that he 'only goes out to play Faro', making him a hard target for the big con.
In the film Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, played by Kurt Russell, becomes a Faro dealer after arriving in Tombstone.

Podcasts

In episode 29 of the horror fiction podcast The Magnus Archives, a soldier in the Revolutionary War plays a game of Faro against a Grim Reaper-type figure to avoid his fate. Notably, as he is about to lose (and therefore die), he removes the copper in the manner described above to literally 'cheat death'.^[17]

References[edit]