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TheRedFez New user 5 Posts |
On a recent trip to Istanbul I saw a scam that I had never seen performed on the street.
I was walking down the Uskudar waterfront and saw a small crowd of about thirty people, I put my hands in my pockets (to protect my wallet) and approached. The group was forming a loose semicircle against a chain link fence. In the middle of the circle was a man who appeared to be in his late 30's, a soccer ball, two coke cans, and three packs of Marlboro reds. He was projecting his voice and saying "I bet you can't do it, one lira a try, win 3 packs of Marlboros or thirty lira!" every minute or so. The game was simple. He would put the soccer ball on the ground, and place the two empty coke cans on either side of the ball, barely touching it. The sucker would pay him the lira, throw the ball at the cans, and try to knock both cans over. Before the ball could rebound off the fence (about 10 feet from the cans) the operator would grab the ball and say "so close" before going back into the "I bet you can't do it" pitch. Every 10 or so attempts, the operator would throw the ball at the cans with an absurd amount of spin. He didn't manage to knock both cans over, but this didn't dissuade the suckers. All the suckers were men in their early twenties, most of them with their girlfriends. I was there about 20 minutes before the cops showed up. The police told him to pack up and move along or they would arrest him. He offered them 2 tries for a lira. The police played for a few minutes before angrily leaving. When the cops left, the operator threw the ball at the cans one more time. There was a ton of spin, and it successfully knocked both cans over. I immediately noticed a few people who had been watching but not playing get in line. Most players had been trying to use brute force, but these new players put spin on it. The new players consistently lost. The game continued for another 15 minutes before the same police pulled back up and turned their lights on. The man picked up his ball, cans, and cigarettes, said goodbye, and started walking to a nearby restaurant. I followed him, bought two beers, and sat down at his table. When I initially started asking him questions he pretended to not know what I was talking about (while drinking my beer). I pulled out a deck of cards and started doing the monte. He immediately smiled and answered my questions. Apparently it was mostly a one man operation. He would offer a street kid a pack of smokes to angrily curse while playing the game and miming handing him the lira coin. After about two minutes a small crowd would gather and pull out the money. He averaged 3 plays a minute and never lost. In terms of buying power, that is the equivalent of well over $150 an hour. He did it for an hour twice a day. The method was identical to the similar carnival game, but he had never heard of the carnival game. Apparently he had been interested in bowling as a kid, but with no lanes, had improvised. When he realized that it was impossible to convert a 7-10 split with his improvised set up, he began betting his friends that they couldn't. It had been his full time job ever since. He said that he would succeed at knocking over both cans only when there were 10 times more people watching than playing, it was his one hook, and he wanted it to work on as many people as possible. He changed where he would play based on which police were working. The only reason the cops has given him any trouble was that it was the end of the month, and they had performance reviews. He claimed that the police could not arrest him because they could not prove that the game was unwinnable. The worst case scenario was a ticket for obstructing a sidewalk, but even that was too much trouble for the cops. He always managed to get away with a small bribe. Overall, I talked to him for a few hours and tried to learn as much as I could about him and his game. I'm sure there are things I forgot to write, so if you have any questions, I can try to answer them, or I could message him on Skype if I don't remember. |
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