Return to site

Street Gambling Paris

broken image


  • » History

The history of humanity is inextricably linked with the history of gambling, as it seems that no matter how far back in time you go there are signs that where groups of people gathered together gambling was sure to have been taking place. Now we are not going to attempt to track every single twist and turn in the evolution of gambling in this article, but what we are going to do is to pick out some of the most important dates to act as milestones on the road to today's gambling experience.

The Earliest Evidence of Gambling

While it is almost certain that some forms of betting have been taking place since the dawn of human history, the earliest concrete evidence comes from Ancient China where tiles were unearthed which appeared to have been used for a rudimentary game of chance. The Chinese ‘Book of Songs' makes reference to 'the drawing of wood' which suggests that the tiles may have formed part of a lottery type game. We have evidence in the form of keno slips which were used in about 200bc as some sort of lottery to fund state works – possibly including construction of the Great Wall of China. Lotteries continued to be used for civic purposes throughout history – Harvard and Yale were both established using lottery funds – and continue to do so until the present day.

Street Gambling Paris, best slots hard rock tampa, how to glitch the slot machines in borderlands 2, jerry richardson poker.

Dicing with the Law on the Streets of Ancient Rome

  1. River City Casino 777 River City Casino Boulevard St. Louis, MO 63125 Telephone: (888) 578-7289 Casino Website St. Jo Frontier Casino Information: (800) 888-2946 Casino Website.
  2. If you have a hunch about the outcome of the fixture between Paris St-G and Basaksehir, have a punt on it! We have odds on 7 different popular markets for Paris St-G v Basaksehir. Betting on Paris St-G v Basaksehir? Bet on the football fixture between Paris St-G.
  3. Paris St-G Match Preview The away side has won all three of the previous European meetings between Manchester United and Paris SG, with the French side winning 2-0 in their only such visit to Old Trafford, in the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League last 16.

The Greek poet Sophocles claimed that dice were invented by a mythological hero during the siege of Troy, and while this may have somewhat dubious basis in fact, his writings around 500bc were the first mention of dice in Greek history. We know that dice existed far earlier than this, since a pair had been uncovered from an Egyptian tomb from 3000bc, but what is certain is that the Ancient Greeks and Romans loved to gamble on all manner of things, seemingly at any given opportunity. In fact all forms of gambling – including dice games – were forbidden within the ancient city of Rome and a penalty imposed on those caught which was worth four times the stake being bet. As a result of this, ingenious Roman citizens invented the first gambling chips, so if they were nabbed by the guards they could claim to be playing only for chips and not for real money. (Note that this ruse will not work if attempted at a Vegas casino).

Playing your Cards Right in China

Most scholars agree that the first playing cards appeared in China in the 9th century, although the exact rules of the games they were used for have been lost to history. Some suggest that the cards were both the game and the stake, like trading card games played by children today, while other sources believe the first packs of cards to have been paper forms of Chinese domino. Certainly the cards used at this time bore very little relation to the standard 52 card decks we know today.

Baccarat in Italy and France

The earliest game still played in casinos today is the two player card game of Baccarat, a version of which was first mentioned as long ago as the 1400s when it migrated from Italy to France. Despite its early genesis, it took hundreds of years and various evolutions to arrive at the game we know today. Although different incarnations of the game have come and gone, the standard version played in casinos all over the world came from Cuba via Britain to the US, with a few alterations to the rules along the way. Although baccarat is effectively more of a spectator sport than a game, it is a feature of just about every casino due to its popularity with high rolling gamblers.

Blackjack through the Ages

Some suggest that the earliest forms of blackjack came from a Spanish game called ventiuna (21) as this game appeared in a book written by the author of Don Quixote in 1601. Or was it the game of trente-un (31) from 1570? Or even quinze (15) from France decades earlier? As with all of these origin stories, the inventors of games of chance were rarely noted in the historical annals. The French game of vingt-et-un in the seventeenth century is certainly a direct forefather of the modern game, and this is the game that arrived in the US along with early settlers from France. The name ‘blackjack' was an American innovation, and linked to special promotions in Nevada casinos in the 1930s. To attract extra customers, 10 to 1 odds were paid out if the player won with a black Jack of Clubs or Spades together with an Ace of Spades. The special odds didn't last long, but the name is still with us today.

First Casinos in Italy

The earliest gambling houses which could reasonably be compared to casinos started to appear in the early 17th century in Italy. For example, in 1638, the Ridotto was established in Venice to provide a controlled gambling environment amidst the chaos of the annual carnival season. Casinos started to spring up all over continental Europe during the 19th century, while at the same time in the US much more informal gambling houses were in vogue. In fact steam boats taking prosperous farmers and traders up and down the Mississippi provided the venue for a lot of informal gambling stateside. Now when we think of casinos we tend to picture the Las Vegas Strip, which grew out of the ashes of the Depression in America.

The Little Wheel in Paris

Roulette as we know it today originated in the gaming houses of Paris, where players would have been familiar with the wheel we now refer to (ironically enough) as the American Roulette wheel. It took another 50 years until the ‘European' version came along with just one green zero, and generations of roulette players can be grateful for that. During the course of the 19th century roulette grew in popularity, and when the famous Monte Carlo casino adopted the single zero form of the game this spread throughout Europe and most of the world, although the Americans stuck to the original double zero wheels.

Poker: Bust to Boom

It's hard to pin down the precise origin of poker – as with a lot of the games mentioned here, poker seems to have grown organically over decades and possibly centuries from various different card games. Some have poker's antecedents coming from seventeenth century Persia, while others say that the game we know today was inspired by a French game called Poque. What we do know for sure is that an English actor by the name of Joseph Crowell reported that a recognizable form of the game was being played in New Orleans in 1829, so that is as good a date as any for the birth of poker. The growth of the game's popularity was fairly sluggish up until world poker tournaments started being played in Vegas in the 1970s. However poker really exploded with the advent of online poker and televised events allowing spectators to see the players' hands. When amateur player Chris Moneymaker qualified for and won the 2003 world poker championship after qualifying through online play, it allowed everyone to picture themselves as online poker millionaires.

One Armed Bandits Appear in New York

The first gambling machine which resembled the slots we know today was one developed by Messrs Sittman and Pitt in New York, which used the 52 cards on drum reels to make a sort of poker game. Around the same time the Liberty Bell machine was invented by a Charles Fey in San Francisco. This machine proved much more practical in the sense that winnings could be precisely regulated, and marked the beginning of the real slot game revolution. The fact that some new video slot games still feature bell symbols dates back to this early invention. While early machines spewed out cigars and gum instead of money, the money dispensing versions soon became a staple in bars and casinos around the globe, and when the first video slot was invented in 1976 this paved the way for the online video slots which were to follow.

Gambling in the US: Two Sides of the Same Coin

The United States has always had an up and down relationship with gambling, dating back to when the very first European settlers arrived. Whereas Puritan bands of settlers banned gambling outright in their new settlements, those emigrating from England had a more lenient view of gambling and were more than happy to tolerate it. This dichotomous relationship has continued until now, and in 1910 public pressure led to a nationwide prohibition on gambling. Just like the alcohol prohibition of the same era, this proved somewhat difficult to enforce and gambling continued on in an only slightly discreet manner. The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression that this spawned in the early 1930s led to gambling being legalized again, as for many this was the only prospect of alleviating the grinding poverty which they suffered through. Although gambling is legal in a number of States today –most famously in Las Vegas, Nevada - online gambling is still something of a grey area in the United States. Right now, many international internet casinos are unable to accept American clients, although the signs are that this will change in the near future.

The New Frontier for Gambling

Microgaming is one of the largest casino and slot game developers in the world today, and they are also considered to be pioneers of online gambling. The leap into the world of virtual casinos was taken all the way back in 1994, which in internet terms is kind of like 2300bc! Online gaming was worth over a billion dollars within 5 years, and today is a multibillion dollar industry with over a thousand online casinos and growing. The first live dealer casinos appeared in 2003 courtesy of Playtech, bringing us closer to a hybrid between brick and mortar casinos and the virtual world.

Gambling Has Gone Mobile

Since New Jersey legalized online gambling in 2011, there has been a boom in the interest people have in it. America has seen a move towards legalizing it state by state, as well as experiencing the rapid rise in mobile gambling. Across the globe, internet users are gradually veering away from their desktops and towards their handheld devices. This is true of online gamblers too, wanting to be able to enjoy their favorite games whilst on the go. The top gambling sites out there have recognized a market and have stepped up to deliver. With a wave of impressive mobile focused online gambling destinations taking the world by storm, it's safe to say that desktops are being left far behind in favour of more mobile alternatives.


…The Future

Street Gambling Paris

What Comes Next?

It is just about as difficult to predict the future for gambling as it is to uncover some of the origins of the gambling games we know so well today. Much of the focus at the moment is on the mobile gaming market, with online casinos scrambling to make more content compatible with the latest hand held devices. Virtual reality technology is just taking its first steps as a commercial proposition, and you can be sure that there will be gambling applications down the road. How would you like to sit around a virtual poker table with a bunch of your friends from all over the world, share a few laughs, try to tell if you can spot a tell-tale facial tick; and all this from the comfort of your home? VR Headsets can make it happen – maybe not today, but certainly just a few years down the track if technology continues to advance in bounds and leaps.

And after that? Well who knows, but when it comes to gambling all things are possible.

References

  • Dice: Game Pieces (Britannica.com)
  • Baccarat (card game) (Wikipedia.org)
  • Twenty-One (card game) (Wikipedia.org)
  • How Casinos Work (HowStuffWorks.com)
  • Where Did Poker Originate? (History.com)
  • History Of Poker (Wopc.co.uk)
  • Chris Moneymaker (Wikipedia.org)
  • Historical Interlude (VideoGameHistorian.com)
  • Charles Fey and San Francieco's Liberty Bell Slot Machine (California Historical Quarterly)
  • Microgaming: About Us (Microgaming.co.uk)
  • New Jersey Now Allows Gambling via Internet (NYTimes.com)
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.

Paris Casino News

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.

Hard rock casino tulsa weekly promotions. 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.

Street Gambling Paris Restaurant

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.

Street Gambling Paris New York

See also[edit]

  • Cups and balls routine

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]

  1. ^'Three-card monte scam artists return to midtown, Is this Christmas 2014 – or 1974?'. New York Post. 26 December 2014.
  2. ^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.
  3. ^Michael Benson (2009). Cons and Frauds. Infobase Publishing. pp. 21–22. ISBN978-1-4381-1659-4. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  4. ^'Shell Game.' Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/539702/shell-game
  5. ^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.
  6. ^'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

Gambling Casinos In Paris France

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shell_game&oldid=993551424'




broken image