Street Gambling Games

Posted on 3/30/2022 by admin

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Street Dice is a dice game that debuted at the Downtown Grand casino in Las Vegas on May 16, 2014. It could loosely be described as a simplified version of craps, with just two bets and a maximum of four rolls to resolve a bet. 3 reviews of Easy Street Casino 'This casino is a well kept secret. It is clean quaint and has just the right amount of machines to satisfy any gamblers preference. The staff go out of their way to accommodate your needs. They are so friendly, unlike the staff down the hill at the big casinos. The restaurant upstairs is like taking a step back.

An illegal shell game performed with bottle caps on Fulton Street in New York City

The shell game (also known as thimblerig, three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is almost always a confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud. In confidence trick slang, this swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off.^[1] The shell game is related to the cups and balls conjuring trick, which is performed purely for entertainment purposes without any purported gambling element.

Play[edit]

An illegal shell game in Drottninggatan, a street in Stockholm.

In the shell game, three or more identical containers (which may be cups, shells, bottle caps, or anything else) are placed face-down on a surface. A small ball is placed beneath one of these containers so that it cannot be seen, and they are then shuffled by the operator in plain view. One or more players are invited to bet on which container holds the ball – typically, the operator offers to double the player's stake if they guess right. Where the game is played honestly, the operator can win if he shuffles the containers in a way which the player cannot follow.^[2]

In practice, however, the shell game is notorious for its use by confidence tricksters who will typically rig the game using sleight of hand to move or hide the ball during play and replace it as required. Fraudulent shell games are also known for the use of psychological tricks to convince potential players of the legitimacy of the game – for example, by using shills or by allowing a player to win a few times before beginning the scam.^[3]

History[edit]

'The Conjurer,' painted by Hieronymus Bosch. The painting accurately displays a performer doing the cups and balls routine, which has been practiced since Egyptian times. The shell game does have some origins in this old trick. The real trick of this painting is the pickpocket who is working for the conjurer. The pickpocket is robbing the spectator who is bent over.

The shell game dates back at least to Ancient Greece.^[4] It can be seen in several paintings of the European Middle Ages. A book published in England in 1670 (Hull Elections – Richard Perry and his fiddler wife) mentions the thimblerig game. In the 1790s, it was called 'thimblerig' as it was originally played using sewing thimbles. Later, walnut shells were used, and today the use of bottle caps or matchboxes is common.

The swindle became very popular throughout the nineteenth century, and games were often set up in or around traveling fairs. A thimblerig team (comprising operator and confederates) was depicted in William Powell Frith's 1858 painting, The Derby Day. In Frith's 1895, My Autobiography and Reminiscences the painter-turned-memorialist leaves an account of his encounter with a thimble-rig team (operator and accomplices):

'My first visit to Epsom was in the May of 1856 – Blink Bonnie's year. My first Derby had no interest for me as a race, but as giving me the opportunity of studying life and character it is ever to be gratefully remembered. Gambling-tents and thimble-rigging, prick in the garter and the three-card trick, had not then been stopped by the police. So convinced was I that I could find the pea under the thimble that I was on the point of backing my guess rather heavily, when I was stopped by Augustus Egg, whose interference was resented by a clerical-looking personage, in language much opposed to what would have been anticipated from one of his cloth. 'You,' said Egg, addressing the divine, 'you are a confederate, you know; my friend is not to be taken in.' 'Look here,' said the clergyman, 'don't you call names, and don't call me names, or I shall knock your d –– d head off.' 'Will you?' said Egg, his courage rising as he saw two policemen approaching. 'Then I call the lot of you – the Quaker there, no more a Quaker than I am, and that fellow that thinks he looks like a farmer – you are a parcel of thieves!' 'So they are, sir,' said a meek-looking lad who joined us; 'they have cleaned me out.' 'Now move off; clear out of this!' said the police; and the gang walked away, the clergyman turning and extending his arms in the act of blessing me and Egg.'

Fear of jail and the need to find new 'flats' (victims) kept these 'sharps' (shell men or 'operators') traveling from one town to the next, never staying in one place very long. One of the most infamous confidence men of the nineteenth century, Jefferson Randolph Smith, known as Soapy Smith, led organized gangs of shell men throughout the mid-western United States, and later in Alaska.

Today, the game is still being played for money in many major cities around the world, usually at locations with a high tourist concentration (for example: New York City, Chicago,^[5] and Los Angeles, in the United States, La Rambla^[6] in Barcelona, Gran Via in Madrid, Benidorm, Paris in France, Westminster Bridge, London, Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, Germany, Malta, Italy, Bahnhofsviertel in Frankfurt am Main). The swindle is classified as a confidence trick game, and illegal to play for money in most countries.^{[citation needed]}

The game also inspired a pricing game on the game show The Price Is Right, in which contestants attempt to win a larger prize by pricing smaller prizes to earn attempts at finding a ball hidden under one of four shells designed to resemble walnut shells. While the ball is not shown during the game, and the host shuffles the shells before the start of the game, contestants can win by either winning all four attempts or winning enough attempts, and picking the one that has the ball. The shuffling is only allowed before the pricing part of the game begins, and once the first small prize is announced, no further shuffling is permitted. Federal game show regulations are designed to ensure the game is legally a game that can be won.

Bibliography[edit]

Bishop, Glen, The Shellgame – For Tableside Tricksters, 2000^{[ISBN missing]}
Price, Paul, The Real Work: Essential Sleight Of Hand For Street Operators, 2001^{[ISBN missing]}
Whit Haydn and Chef Anton, Notes on Three-card Monte^{[ISBN missing]}

Notes[edit]

^'Three-card monte scam artists return to midtown, Is this Christmas 2014 – or 1974?'. New York Post. 26 December 2014.
^John Philip Quinn (1892). Fools of Fortune: Or, Gambling and Gamblers, Comprehending a History of the Vice in Ancient and Modern Times, and in Both Hemispheres; an Exposition of Its Alarming Prevalence and Destructive Effects; with an Unreserved and Exhaustive Disclosure of Such Frauds, Tricks and Devices as are Practiced by 'Professional' Gamblers, 'Confidence Men' and 'Bunko Steerers.'. Anti-Gambling Association. pp. 348–350. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
^Michael Benson (2009). Cons and Frauds. Infobase Publishing. pp. 21–22. ISBN978-1-4381-1659-4. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
^'Shell Game.' Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/539702/shell-game
^share (27 November 2012). 'I saw a fascinating scam on the Red Line today. You should probably not play this game (unless you are the first) : chicago'. Reddit.com. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
^'The Rambla of the Thimbleriggers.' Baquero, Camilo S. Translated from the Spanish by Summer Fingersmith. El País. http://www.robbedinbarcelona.com/2011/04/23/the-rambla-of-the-thimbleriggers/

External links[edit]

How do big city shell games work?. How Stuff Works

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shell_game&oldid=999086350'

Introduction

Street Dice is a dice game that debuted at the Downtown Grand casino in Las Vegas on May 16, 2014. It could loosely be described as a simplified version of craps, with just two bets and a maximum of four rolls to resolve a bet. At the Grand, the game is played outdoors with the dice cast inside a three-sided wood box, painted to look like an alley.

The dealer uses a claw to pick up the dice.

Rules

There are two bets only in Street Dice. Both are played with two ordinary dice.

Pass Bet

The Pass bet is made before the 'Set the Point' roll, the equivalent to the come out roll in craps.
If the Set the Point roll is a 7, then the Pass bet pushes.
If the Set the Point roll is an 11, then the Pass bet wins even money.
If the Set the Point roll is a 2, 3, or 12, then the Pass bet loses.
Otherwise, whatever was rolled becomes the Point. The object is to roll the point again, within three more rolls, and without rolling a seven. The odds depend on the point and on which roll it was rolled a second time, according to the pay table below.
If a seven is rolled after the Set the Point roll, or the player goes three rolls without rolling the point or a seven (I'll call this getting three strikes), then the Pass bet loses.

Pass Bet Pay Table

Roll	Point
Roll	4, 10	5, 9	6, 8
1	5 to 1	4 to 1	3 to 1
2	4 to 1	3 to 1	2 to 1
3	3 to 1	2 to 1	1 to 1

These are the dice used. They are a little bigger than craps dice. I'm told the Grand preferred to use even larger dice, but these are as big as Nevada Gaming will allow.

Some readers might wonder about the bounciness of the ground. It is like wet clay. Sometimes the dice just lay right where they land.

Brick Bet

The Brick bet is made before the 'Set the Point' roll.
If the Set the Point roll is a 7 or 11, then the Brick bet pushes.
If the Set the Point roll is a 2, 3, 5, 9, or 12, then the Brick bet loses.
Otherwise, whatever was rolled becomes the Point. The object is to roll the point again the hard way* within three more rolls, and without rolling a seven or the point the easy way**. A win pays 25 to 1.
If the player rolls a seven, rolls the point the easy way, or goes three rolls after the Set the Point roll without doing either, then the Brick bet loses.

* The Hard Way is rolling a particular even number with both dice landing on the same face. For example, a five and five would be called a hard 10.
** The Easy Way is rolling a particular even number with both dice landing on difference faces. For example, a four and six would be called an easy 10.

Analysis

The following return table shows the probability and contribution to the return of all possible outcomes of the Pass bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 5.02%.

Pass Bet Return Table

Event	Pays	Probability	Return
Set the Point roll 7	0	0.166667	0.000000
Set the Point roll 11	1	0.055556	0.055556
Set the Point roll 2, 3, 12	-1	0.111111	-0.111111
Roll 1 -- Point 4 or 10	5	0.013889	0.069444
Roll 1 -- Point 5 or 9	4	0.024691	0.098765
Roll 1 -- Point 6 or 8	3	0.038580	0.115741
Roll 2 -- Point 4 or 10	4	0.010417	0.041667
Roll 2 -- Point 5 or 9	3	0.017833	0.053498
Roll 2 -- Point 6 or 8	2	0.026792	0.053584
Roll 3 -- Point 4 or 10	3	0.007813	0.023438
Roll 3 -- Point 5 or 9	2	0.012879	0.025758
Roll 3 -- Point 6 or 8	1	0.018605	0.018605
Seven out	-1	0.248114	-0.248114
Three strikes	-1	0.247054	-0.247054
Total	1.000000	-0.050223

The following return table shows the probability and contribution to the return of all possible outcomes of the Brick bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 6.27%.