# How to "win" carnival games **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 13, 2000, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477 "2000-07-13T20:18:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/21 "2000-07-16T18:06:28Z")
Having thought about it, I’ve decided that despite being initially perplexed, this is one of my favorite active threads. Let’s just say for the record that the question is: **What are the artifices used by carnival game operators to make their games difficult or impossible to win, and are there strategies by which a smart player can overcome the schemes and walk out with the big teddy bear for his/her sweetie?** ---
**Author:** ![justwannano](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ab992/32.png) [@justwannano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justwannano)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/22 "2000-07-16T18:26:41Z")
OK with me manny Hell I had to look up artifices in the dictionary. I’ll post as a question next time. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/23 "2000-07-16T19:18:43Z")
> [@](#): > > _divemaster didst say:_ > \*\*I took my little brother to a carnival once and let him shoot the basketball for a buck. It’s true that the rims are quite a bit smaller than regulation. Anyway, my bro was about 10 years old, so it was all he could do to heave the ball up toward the basket. > > Well, the ball clanged off the rim hard, went up into the air, and made a perfect swish into the _net on the adjacent backboard_, which was 5-6 feet over from the intended target. > > The carny was flummoxed. He’d never seen that before and wasn’t too sure about awarding the prize. I tell him “Hey, he shot, it went in a basket, come on.” He eventually gave up the prize. \*\* You were lucky. The same company runs the North Carolina state fair each year, and I know that they have prominent signs posted explicitly stating that it has to go through your own basket to win. (Of course, your brother’s exploits may be what caused them to put up the sign in the first place…) ---
**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/24 "2000-07-16T22:13:33Z")
Scams. There is even a book out by a descammer that explains what the carneys do. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/25 "2000-07-16T23:01:18Z")
I’ve got a book that explains several carny scams, but it’s at home and I’m not. Once, I was at a carnival where they had a cork shooting game. You could shoot at small red targets for a dollar and win a small prize, or you could shoot at a smaller white target for two dollars to win a big prize. Ten smaller prizes could be traded in for a large prize. I saw a guy collecting the smaller prizes, blowing money like crazy. I walked up, paid two frogskins, hit the little white target, and the carny handed me a skateboard without hesitation. I checked out books on skateboarding from the library. The wheels were good, the truck was good, the board solid and the assembly was tight. It seemed from all I could tell to be a decent quality skateboard that should have cost $50 to $75 dollars. To this day, I’m baffled at how easy it was to win. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/26 "2000-07-16T23:28:36Z")
There is an excellent book by Darwin Ortiz called “Gambling Scams” and it includes an excellent chapter on carnival games. It covers the disks on the star game. According to this book, this game is impossible to win because the carny operator can streach the canvas the star is on and make it peek behind the disks. ---
**Author:** ![Real\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@Real\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Real_Time)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477/27 "2000-07-17T04:19:22Z")
The one with 3 “milk bottles” in a pyramid is a trick because the bottoms are weighted. For the hit a seesaw to send a block up to ring a bell, they had a block of wood to change the point of fulcrum. They had a special on this for 20-20. It ran twice, so it may appear again in the summer. I suppose they may sell the tape? Or is that just PBS. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-win-carnival-games/25477.md?page=1)