Looking Back – Playing to win on the frontier

By Rosemary Fetter

The Criterion saloon, one of frontier Denver’s most notorious gaming halls, offered faro, poker and passable whiskey.

In the dust-drenched mining and cattle towns of the early West, gambling was a universally accepted form of amusement. A rancher, miner or cowboy with money in his pocket could find a game in almost any saloon, and most frontier settlements were wide open. Along with stud poker, three of the most frequently played card games were three-card monte, faro and poker. Both were easy to play and their fast-paced action was appropriate for the times. These games were also favorites with card sharks and con artists because it was so easy to cheat.

Three-card monte, a legacy from the riverboat gamblers and a variation of the ancient shell and pea game, was played with two cards of low denomination and a face card or an ace. The professional gambler would place the three cards face down on the table, shuffle them around and bet that the spectator could not find the high card. Although this “slight of hand” exercise might be played honestly on rare occasions, more often it was a sucker’s game. The gambler usually had an assistant or “capper” in the crowd. This helper would appear to win easily from the inept dealer, but both the assistant and the dealer’s incompetence would magically disappear when a legitimate bet was placed. Three-card monte was so often a swindler’s tool that it was illegal in Denver as early as 1861.

Players had a somewhat better chance at faro, and many a card shark who should have known better had a weakness for the game. In fact, Denver’s notorious gambler and three-card monte specialist Jefferson “Soapy” Smith was reputedly dispatched to that big card game in the sky after an argument over a faro game in Alaska.

To play faro, gamblers used a standard deck of cards, a special faro-dealing box and a device for card counting similar to an abacus. Players would place their bets on any card at the faro table, where a full deck of cards was reproduced. The suit was irrelevant. The dealer would deal two cards from a box. The first card dealt would lose and the second card would win. Bets on other cards could be taken back or saved for the next play. When pairs were dealt the bank took half, so a deck was often stacked with pairs to improve house odds. The card counting device allowed participants to keep track of cards already played so they could determine more accurately when the odds were favorable. To make the game more interesting, tokens called “coppers” could be placed on a card, betting that the card would lose instead of win. The size of the bet usually ranged from twenty-five cents to $1, which translates to $5 – $25 in today’s currency. Apparently high rollers were rare in early Colorado, and those were usually poker players.

A mail order house called Wall and Fink supplied enterprising gamblers with rigged faro dealing boxes that would manipulate the odds even more in his favor. Of the 19 boxes marketed by this company, only three dealt a fair game. Faro dealers who considered themselves honest, like Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, would use crooked dealing boxes without a twinge of guilt. Curiously, according to the ethics of the Old West, an honest dealer was one who found original ways to cheat and did not shortchange the customer. In the early days, gold dust was the usual currency, and all gaming and parlor houses had their own set of gold scales.

The game of poker, the only one of the three still played today, required much more skill. Although many versions were played, the standard poker game is still the five-card draw. Other games played by professionals included fan tan, keno, Klondike, chuck luck, bungaloo and the ever-popular craps.

Gambling was not limited to card games, however. People would bet on foot racing, horse racing, bull fights, cock fights, dog fights, prize fights, wrestling, and almost anything else that paired one element against another. In one Texas town, a circus in financial trouble left a lion and lioness behind, and the town citizens pitted the two against a bull.

Cruelty to animals was usually not a common concern.

Hard-core gamblers who ran out of money would put up their guns, horses, knives, and even property and mining claims. Cattlemen were the most notorious, often losing their cattle or their profit from a sale to a card shark. Before the Civil War, in states like Texas where slavery was legal, slaves were often sold and families split apart and at the turn of a card.