I have four nice belts; three ostrich and a snake skin, which would make nice cowboy belts if only they had them there nice buckle sets which you boys have over there. Our joint is in the jewellery quarter but I can’t find any as nice as these around here; http://www.avantdesignsinc.com/

Exactly - that's the real key to Monte. The game could be played with the cards face-up and the suckers still couldn't make any money at it. That's what they don't understand. They think it's all about "following" the card, not realizing that when you fail to follow the card you're doomed and when you succeed in following the card you just get shoved aside by someone with a bigger bankroll than you. There's never an opportunity to book a winning wager.

Jason

The last time we saw Monte was when in Spain a few years ago but we haven’t seen it for ages. My family were in the racing game often we would see find the lady at the races. The crowds at sporting events back then were huge but today it’s dead. We were brought up being told it was the suckers who could not win and everybody seemed to know that and yet the mote crews always found some customers.

It is amazing how these type games just go on and on...with a never ending crop of new "customers."

I won't be around 100 years from now, but human nature doesn't change and I would venture to say this game will exist in one form or another at that time.

An article from our neighboring forum on three-card monte. Although Penn Jillette still doesn't get it. Monte mobs don't let suckers win and then increase the bets. It's still a good read.

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=190

Three-card monte is very much alive in Paris around the Eiffel tower and some other famous tourist landmarks. They still use cards but more often than not they'll use cups or rubber pucks. The reporter says that some crews win up to 2000 Euros a day (about 2200 USD).

It's in French, but it's not difficult to follow as they show the crew in action. Chinese tourists get fleeced.
The reporter (with a hidden camera) does say that you can never win.

That video had a bit of everything, cards, discs, and top and ball (with cups).

It's funny though, how in most all the demonstrations they (the press) always imply that it's always all about the hype, when in reality - knowing about the hype (and only about the hype) makes you even more of a mark - this by believing that if you could only beat the hype, you would be able to beat the game!

What do you mean by "hype"? Sleight-of-hand or following the winning card/disk/ball?

I don't believe the reporter implied that. Only the magician made the point that you can never win, of if you do it's because they let you, because sleight-of-hand will always fool you, by default implying, but never saying, that if you could follow the target you would win.

Well there are essentially two sides to all things, which we might call the art and the science. The art is the nonsense with which we dress sensible things. i.e.

‘It will have been seen by the foregoing that the presentation of a card trick may contain much more bosh than action, and indeed the performance of the one just described might be advantageously prolonged by a great deal more nonsense. In all card entertainments the more palaver the more the interest is excited, and the address and patter of the performer will count as much if not more than his skill in manipulation.’

The hype is the art, the bosh, the nonsense and so on. It is the theatrical side of it as opposed to the science, the action, the mechanical steps of the experiment. Watching a Monte crew is like watching a play, a drama with the reality of science in it, I think.

The "hype" is the name of the actual move where the card or disk that you THINK is being thrown, isn't.

The one sliding over top of the other is called the "hype".

What I was making note of was that folks who think it's all about beating the "hype" haven't got a clue. It wasn't a comment made exclusively as a result of watching the video, although the amount of time spent in that video demonstrating the "hype" tends to imply that the move is somehow the focus of the Monte, and is the primary reason why a flatie can't beat it.

The hype is most definitely "a move", but it's got nothing to do with why the Monte can't be beat.

Thank you for the clarification, Artie.

One interesting footnote about three-card monte (bonneteau) in France is that legally it's not considered a fraud offense anymore (Paris court, 2013).

By that they mean that the game is honest and the punters have a genuine chance of winning at it. This is funny, or rather sad, as the game has been played in France since the 14th century and been decried as a dupe game from its very beginning.

When practitioners are chased and arrested by the police, they get charged with gambling money without a permit on a public space. The sentence is far less severe and explains why the three-card monte games are proliferating all over Paris tourist attractions.

It does show a lack of understanding of the game and that sometimes "The law is an ass".

Oh right, I assumed Artie meant hyperbole.

Speaking of wrong assumptions, when in Spain, at the climax the thrower would fake an augment and while his back was turned for a moment, a fake player would ‘peek’ the money card, flash it to the sucker, who would bet on it and lose. Now I naturally assumed the fake player must have switched the card but too good to be. Then I remembered something my grandmother showed me; a corner card flash perhaps.

Whatever the case may be it seems poetic justice to me.

I don’t quite follow that one. If one of the other player confederates lifts up the winning card and flashes it to the sucker, and the cards remain lying there without being moved after the flash and the sucker loses by betting on it, it becomes obvious it is an outright scam. I would think the cards would have to be moved around the table at minimum before the sucker makes his bet so if he loses, it is possible he lost track of the winning card.

Palming a small piece of a card corner to use for the flash rather than switching the entire card might be an easier way to go on this. Of course, if the hustler tosses the cards again after the flash and before the bet, than we are back again to doing the "hype."

A lot of the times when the "sucker" guesses the money card what I've seen usually happens:

1) If he bets 70$ and starts to turn the money card, the cheater would just say: "sorry I accept only > 100$"

2) If someone bets and points to the money card the cheat would shuffle cards again and say: "I want you to really follow this."

Even when someone guesses right - he can not win.

Only people who win bet ultra fast and they are usually on the con.

"that's your guess as to where the card is? ... one more chance to increase your bet sir ... no?... you bet $100.00 then? ... OK ... Hold on - I'll give this gentlemen the same offer I gave you, one more chance to increase your bet sir, YES!, this gentleman increases his bet to $200.00 - sorry sir, but your $100.00 was outbet - would you care to leave it down and bet again"?

They're not "usually" on the con, they're "always" on the con.
Betting "ultra fast" doesn't get you anything.

Indeed, if you're a flatie, you're always gettin' bupkiss.

It is a scam but the sucker has cheated so what can he say? By the time he has thought about it they have got his money and gone.

Final move in the story I heard about a half-wise sucker getting beat in Washington DC once:
"Do you think you followed it? well then out your money down. Nice bet sir let's see if you got-- Cops, run!"