Does anyone know where to look for what standard procedure for a Faro dealer was? Was there such a thing? I know how the game works in general, and I did dig far enough to find out why Faro shuffles would be done, but was it just a single faro shuffle followed by a cut or would there be more shuffles before/after?

Well some used overhand shuffles because one method used to cheat was tie-ups and you can't use that with riffle shuffles. I guess it depends on where and when you are talking about.

There were dozen of variants for the game Faro. I'd bet that the one they played in USA in 1850 has little to do with the one played in France in 1680. Therefore, the procedures were certainly not unique.

I suppose you have read Maskelyne, Hoyle, etc. I just checked quickly and I read nothing in particular. Most often than not it's simply written "shuffle and mix the cards well".

Just to give you a hint, here, in England, procedures are not the same for shuffling cards from one pub to another...

The copy of Hoyle I grabbed does indeed just say shuffle and cut, but I could probably dig a little deeper. Interesting discussions of how to spot a dishonest game in that book, though.
If nothing else, I wanted to know if there was a thing dealers did consistently, preferably in the american version of the game late 19th century. I totally understand that there doesn't have to be a standard procedure, but I figured I could check before I just made something up.

I don’t know how they “mixed” the cards in the 19th century, but I did watch the games dealt in Vegas in the early 60s.

As I recall they had a big circular wheel with an individual slot for each for deck. There were perhaps ten decks in the wheel but I don’t’ recall exactly at this point in time.

The dealer would take the deck just dealt, riffle shuffle and strip cut a few times, insert that deck into the next empty slot in the wheel, turn the wheel a little and remove the next deck in position. He would riffle shuffle and strip cut that deck a number of times and then give a final straight cut. Then the dealer would put the deck in the Faro box and proceed to deal the cards out in Faro game format.

Pretty straight forward procedure.

Interesting. Was that the standard for card games or was that unique to Faro?
I'm a little disheartened by the lack of Faro Shuffles in Faro procedure for purely aesthetic reasons.

History

According to gambling expert Geno Munari, in the game of Faro, it was very important that the players and the dealer did not get a single flash of any card that was in the deck. If the dealer knew the position of a card it would be very easy to know a winning card or a losing card. So the early Faro operators devised a technique of shuffling that made it virtually impossible to see indices or card face values.[1]

The first method is accomplished as follows: The cards would be squared up on the layout and then separated into two equal packets and butted together at the short ends, as a normal table riffle shuffle would begin. Instead of bringing up the inner corners of the cards to allow each side (left and right) to be sprung from the thumbs on to each other in a weave like pattern, the two butted ends are basically woven into each other by an extremely quick appliance of pressure and a slight movement and twisting of the packets, without being lifted off the table. The thumbs are on the sides of the packets and the forefingers on the backs of each packet. The movement happens very quickly and almost impossible to explain in print. The interlace begins at the bottom and goes to the top. One must just try it. The dealing layout also helps facilitate the movements of the cards with the latitude of cushion under the cards. The cards literally do not leave the table, thus not one card pip or index can be determined. A perfect interlace can occur with this shuffle.

Shuffling checks (chips) with one hand was a common thing that a dealer would do with no action on the table. The players would also shuffle checks even during the course of play. Someone early on figured that if you had a stack of checks, say red and green, that after a certain amount of shuffles they would return to the original stacked order. That discovery led to the idea of shuffling the cards perfectly eight times to return to the original order. Hence the Faro Shuffle was created to arrange the order of the cards from random to a predicted order.

The second method of the Faro shuffle very closely resembles the first method: After the cards are split into two different packets and butted together on the table, they are grasped by the ends by the thumbs and second fingers on the sides. The first finger lies on top of the backs, and then the cards are lifted slightly off the table just enough to start the interlace. In this method the interlace begins on the top and goes to the bottom. It is very showy.

http://www.geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Faro_Shuffle

Thanks Tommy. Why didn't I look there?
Now I need to figure out how to do the chip shuffling thing...

Pop Haydn and his gang might be well informed about all this I would ask him if I were you.

Re tommy’s post of Oct 31, 2012 5:17pm above:

I would have to question the efficacy of shuffling like this in a Faro game. With respect to Munari, I have seen the Faro games dealt in live action, not in theory, and have not seen the cards shuffled like this. Perhaps it was done that way in earlier times, but it is more of a cheating maneuver rather than a method to protect any cards from being exposed.

The Faro dealers in Vegas shuffled by cutting the deck in about half, placing the ends together and then laying one hand over each half. The innermost corners were lifted slightly and the card riffled shuffled together in that manner. That is the safest way to shuffle cards flat on the table.

Perfect Faro shuffling of the cards is very dangerous and not used legitimately in any game I am acquainted with.

Below is an old post of mine from several years ago written on the Cardshark BB in which I describe the Faro game procedures used in Vegas in the early 60s.

I wrote this piece a couple of years ago for another purpose. Since there appears to be an interest in things past, I thought I would include it here for the benefit of those members who have heard of Faro but have never seen a live Faro game nor realized it was dealt in Vegas in the 60s. So here is a modification of my original writing.

When I was a very young man (in the early 60s), I used to watch the Faro or Faro Bank games in Las Vegas with utter fascination. The game was dealt at two clubs at the time, the Las Vegas Club in downtown Las Vegas, and at the Stardust Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. I also believe it was dealt for a short time at the Bonanza.

The games that I watched were rarely played by tourists, but rather by the crusty Vegas old timers (casino bosses, club owners, old time gamblers, gaming people, rounders, etc.) This game was played in almost complete silence and concentration – these guys were dead serious. No hooting, hollering or demonstrating. As I said, these guys were really serious.

The edge the house received came from two sources, the split and the turn. If the winning card and the losing card were of the same denomination, it was called a split and the house kept half the bet. This amounted to about 2% in favor of the house, but it could be reduced down to zero by betting only on the cases as I will explain shortly.

On the turn, the house paid 4 to 1 and the correct odds were 5 to 1, thereby giving the house a 16.66% edge. (The turn was a bet on the order of the last three cards in the box.) The cards were placed face up into what was called a “dealing box” or “Faro box,” and it held only one deck.

One of the players would act as case keeper, keeping track of each denomination as it was dealt, using a device that looked somewhat like an abacus. Each card denomination was printed down the middle of the device, and there were four buttons on a slide next to each denomination. As each card was played, the button which corresponded to the card denomination was slid to the other side of the frame so each player could clearly see how many of each denomination had been already been deal and how many remained. The house percentage could be reduced to zero by only betting on the case card (the last remaining card of a particular denomination), so no split could occur (and of course by not betting on the turn.)

Each player had his own color chips, with the value of the chips marked by the dealer by placing a dollar denomination marker over a colored chip (under the control of the dealer), much like in roulette.

There was a large wheel next to the dealer with slots holding about 20 decks of cards. At the completion of the round, the dealer would thoroughly shuffle the used deck, place it in the empty slot, move the wheel up one notch, take out the next deck, thoroughly shuffle and cut that deck and place it face up in the box and begin dealing after the bets were placed. (The first face up exposed card was “dead.”)

It was beautiful to watch the way these dealers shuffled the cards and handled the chips. Paying the bets was a joy to observe. They were able to pick off the correct number of chips to pay a bet with uncanny accuracy. These dealers were quite skillful and adroit in their shuffling and cutting of the cards - only the very best dealt the Faro game. No lumpies allowed. (A lumpy is an inexperienced or unskilled dealer in casino parlance.)

To a young fellow such as myself, watching these old timers huddling over that old faro layout, with their cigarette and cigar smoke billowing upward from the table, was like a scene from the old west. I still vividly remember it to this day. Because there was no high tech surveillance in those days, all of this was under the steely eyed observation of the ladder man who was sitting on a tall chair overlooking the action and protecting the game. One can read about these things or see motion picture and TV recreations, but it isn’t even close to being there and having the actual experience.

Faro died out in Vegas toward the end of the 60s as I recall, probably because of the low percentage it produced for the house and because other, more popular games (with higher house percentages), appealed more to the tourists. (The low percentage Faro produced for the house was probably the reason that so much house cheating occurred in the Faro games of the old west.)

As an aside, I once visited the Magic Castle in Los Angeles to meet with Dai Vernon. Dai showed me an old silver Faro cheating box that was a precision instrument. As I recall Dai told me it was a Needle-Tell box from the 1800s. It was very clever and beautifully made. In order to unlock the mechanism, Dai said it had to be turned in three different directions, in the correct order, or the box would not unlock. If one could not unlock the box, for all intents and purposes it would appear to be completely legitimate. It was a wonderful piece of craftsmanship. (It is amazing how clever and well-built some of these old time cheating devices and gimmicks of the 1800s and early 1900s were. Some are hard or impossible to figure out unless some old timer who has been there can explain to you how they work.)

For those who are interested, Chapter VIII in Sharps and Flats by Maskelyne has a good explanation of the various cheating ploys used at Faro.

"Perfect Faro shuffling of the cards is very dangerous and not used legitimately in any game I am acquainted with."

Not really. I have seen more than one casino croup using perfect shuffles in poker games legitimately. I kinda agree though.

I was referring to the large, license and regulated casinos in the US. They have strict shuffling and cutting procedures.

Of course, in unlicensed or small casinos in other countries and in the US, where they don’t understand the ramifications of using perfect shuffles, anything can happen.

However, it seems like you have a great deal of professional experience at this. For all I know, you have you seen “professional croups” use overhand shuffles…hand held shuffling machines…shuffling with their feet…etc.???

I was referring to the small, licensed and regulated casinos in the UK. They have strict shuffling and cutting procedures.

Can you explain how you define a riffle?

Oh please, be serious!

LOL

J. N. MASKELYNE, DESCRIBING THE FARO dealer's shuffle, has written: "This shuffle is a very difficult one to learn; but with practice and patience it can be accomplished, and the cards can be made to fly up alternately, without any chance of failure. ... It must not be thought that this manipulative device isessentially a trick for cheating; on the contrary, it is an exceedingly fair and honest shuffle, provided that there is no previous arrangement of the cards. ..."

ect

"Provided there is no previous arraignment of the cards" and therein lies the rub.

Faro in its heyday was fraught with cheating. So…what is the point of this discussion? Anytime the shuffle can be controlled in any way, it leaves it open to cheating maneuvers. When one adopt a shuffle that is more vulnerable that it should be, it is dangerous.

I really don't see any rational discussion here at all except discussion for the sake of discussion.

Reuben Parsons, who became, according to the New York Association for the Suppression of Vice, "the great American Faro Banker," started out by losing huge sums before deciding to turn the game to his profit. Not only was his business vastly successful but it also shaped the careers of numerous other eminent gamblers. Parsons rarely operated a gambling house himself, preferring to stay modestly behind the scenes while partners fronted for him. This New Englander Green described as "plain in his dress, and unassuming in his manners, associates but little with his class, and is seldom publicly seen in any of his gaming houses, of which, although the actual proprietor, he stands in no fear or danger of legal prosecutions, as it cannot be shown that he is the winner of a dollar."

Parsons, long believed to be the brains behind John Frink, the first Policy King of America, backed and gave a chance at the big time to a half-dozen more. So shrewd was he that almost all his ventures turned out well and he invested in more gambling houses and in real estate. In 1861 he went into retirement and lived quietly till after the war, when he caught the Wall Street fever. Wall Street was not Parsons's pasture and the ex-gambler turned out to be a lamb, easily slaughtered by the market bulls and bears who cleaned him out. He died flaf broke in 1875.

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles01/article883.shtml

According to Erdnase "By roughening the faces of some of the cards they will hold together, and are more easily retained while shuffling. Faro cards, used in connection with a certain form of "brace" box, are treated in this manner."

I think that is not quite right. Rather I think it should be; By roughening the faces of some of the cards and by roughening some of the backs of others, they will hold together, and are more easily retained while shuffling. Perhaps. But I think that is not quite right either re shuffling. Rather I think its to do with double, brace dealing from the box.

I mean I don't know what Erdnase means by more easily retained while shuffling? I think he means dealing rather than shuffling.

I wonder if one could use rough and smooth decks for something like this?