Being always facsinated by scams and duping the walking dead, I began wondering about the ever popular card game: 3 card Monty.(or Monte?)
Why is it called that?
Is it named in honor of a an early day sidewalk huckster?
Also, anyone have any Scam books of interest?
Two of my favorites:
*Catch me if you can * (the author’s name escapes me) about a man who started conning early on to get the girls and hot car and ends up riding free on the airlines posing as a pilot.
*Great hoaxes, swindles, scandals, cons, stings and scams * by Joyce Madison (1992) It’s a little dated, but give the basis of Ponzi’s scam.
How coool, this book ( and audio tape) which was read by moi years ago, has left an indelible print on this young would be (if I only had the cojones) con artist.
Hey, I actually met Frank about 8 years ago. He came to my company for a training seminar, and stayed around afterwards to shoot the breeze. Very, very charming,likable fellow.
I can’t give you the answers for which you are searching, but this will have to do.
From Mathews three-card monte, a gambling game in which three cards, previously identified, are dexterously thrown face down on the table to deceive the players, who bet upon the position of one of them.
1854 Parker in Weiss Life T. Parker II. 134 Three-card-monte men, and gambling-house keepers.
worldwidewords is a wonderful site by Michael Quinion. He discusses cheats and card tricks in this particular column and touches on three card monte. I think this will be of much interest to you Shirley
Many decent mid-level card magic books have a section on dealing three-card monte; my favorite is one by Darwin Ortiz entitled Darwin Ortiz at the Card Table.
One interesting thing that he points out is that the effect works much better with cards that have an all-over back design and no border (particularly Bee cards) rather than standard Bicycle cards. For this reason, cigar shops and drugstores in areas where hustlers tend to congregate try their best to stock Bee cards, and frequently sell out of them.
On a slightly more ambitious scale than three-card-monte, there’s David W. Maurer’s The Big Con from 1940. Very recognisably the basis for The Sting, it’s about cons of that sort, though much of what he has to say about the psychology and the culture is relevant to the smaller stuff.
Here we go from my American Heritage dictionary of 1971 in a definition of monte.
“Spanish, “mountain,” referring to the pile of unplayed cards, from Latin mons”
I thought as much, but for different reasons. I thought mountain to convey a sense of impossibility but nope.
It actually appears to be a variation of an earlier game as it says “monte - a game of Spanish origin in which each player bets that one of two cards will be matched by the dealer before the other one. Also called ‘monte bank’”
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives Monte (or Monty) as a Spanish game of chance played with a pack of 45 cards.
It further defines Three Card Monte as a game of Mexican origin played with three cards only, of which one is usually a court card. In the UK this game is known as Find The Lady, where one card is always a queen.
Jinxie’s reference to ‘monte bank’ is reminiscent of ‘mountebank’. This term was originally used to describe a vendor of quack medicines who attracts a crowd by his tricks and antics, hence any charlatan or self-advertising pretender. The dictionary does not connect ‘monte bank’ with ‘mountebank’ but the similarity is striking.
Maurer’s The Big Con is, of course, the classic work on the subject, but if you’re looking more for short con stuff you might try Sting Shift by Smith and Walstad.
