Faro (banking game)

Faro ( ), Pharaoh, Pharao, or Farobank is a late 17th-century French gambling game using cards. It is descended from Basset, and belongs to the Lansquenet and Monte Bank family of games due to the use of a banker and several players. Winning or losing occurs when cards turned up by the banker match those already exposed.
It is not a direct relative of poker, but Faro was often just as popular due to its fast action, easy-to-learn rules, and better odds than most games of chance. The game of Faro is played with only one deck of cards and admits any number of players.
Popular in North America during the 1800s, Faro was eventually overtaken by poker as the preferred card game of gamblers in the early 1900s.
Variants include German Faro, Jewish Faro, and Ladies' Faro.
History.
The earliest references to a card game named "Pharaon" (French for "Pharaoh") are found in Southwestern France during the reign of Louis XIV. Basset was outlawed in 1691, and Pharaoh emerged several years later as a derivative of Basset, before it too was outlawed.
Despite the French ban, Pharaoh and Basset continued to be widely played in England during the 18th century, where it was known as "Pharo", an English alternate spelling of "Pharaoh". The game was easy to learn, quick, and when played honestly, the odds for a player were considered by some to be the best of all gambling games, as Gilly Williams records in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752.
With its name shortened to "Faro", it spread to the United States in the 19th century to become the most widespread and popularly favored gambling game. It was played in almost every gambling hall in the Old West from 1825 to 1915. Faro could be played in over 150 places in Washington, D.C. alone during the Civil War. An 1882 study considered faro to be the most popular form of gambling, surpassing all others forms combined in terms of money wagered each year.
It was also widespread in the German states during the 19th century, where it was known as "Pharao" or "Pharo". A simplified version played with 32 German-suited cards was known as "Deutsches Pharao" ("German Pharo") or "Süßmilch" (Sweet Milk). It is recorded in card game compendia from at least 1810 to 1975.
In the US, Faro was also called "bucking the tiger" or "twisting the tiger's tail", a reference to early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal tiger. By the mid 19th century, the tiger was so commonly associated with the game that gambling districts where faro was popular became known as "tiger town", or in the case of smaller venues, "tiger alley". Some gambling houses would simply hang a picture of a tiger in their windows to advertise that a game could be played there.
Faro's detractors regarded it as a dangerous scam that destroyed families and reduced men to poverty because of rampant rigging of the dealing box. Crooked faro equipment was so popular that many sporting-house companies began to supply "gaffed" dealing boxes specially designed so that the bankers could cheat their players; methods of cheating in faro are detailed below. Cheating was so prevalent that editions of "Hoyle’s Rules of Games" began their faro section by warning readers that not a single honest faro bank could be found in the United States. Criminal prosecutions of faro were involved in the Supreme Court cases of "United States v. Simms", 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803), and "Ex parte Milburn", 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 704 (1835).
Although the game became scarce after World War II, it continued to be played at a few Las Vegas and Reno casinos through 1985.
Etymology.
Historians have suggested that the name "Pharaon" comes from Louis XIV's royal gamblers, who chose the name from the motif that commonly adorned one of the French-made court cards.
Rules.
Description.
A game of faro was often called a "faro bank". It was played with an entire deck of playing cards. One person was designated the "banker" and an indeterminate number of players, known as "punters", could be admitted. Chips (called "checks") were purchased by the punter from the banker (or house) from which the game originated. Bet values and limits were set by the house. Usual check values in the US were 50 cents to $10 each.
The faro table was typically oval, covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one suit of cards (traditionally spades) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting "layout". Each player laid his stake on one of the 13 cards on the layout. Players could place multiple bets and could bet on multiple cards simultaneously by placing their bet between cards or on specific card edges. A player could reverse the intent of his bet by placing a hexagonal (6-sided) token called a "copper" on it. Some histories said a penny was sometimes used in place of a copper. This was known as "coppering" the bet, and reversed the meaning of the win/loss piles for that particular bet. Players also had the choice of betting on the "high card" bar located at the top of the layout.
Procedure.
Certain advantages were reserved to the banker: if he drew a doublet, that is, two equal cards, he won half of the stakes upon the card which equaled the doublet. In a fair game, this provided the only "house edge". If the banker drew the last card of the pack, he was exempt from doubling the stakes deposited on that card. These and the advantage from the odds on the turn bet provided a slight financial advantage to the dealer or house.
A device, called a "casekeep" was employed to assist the players and prevent dealer cheating by counting cards. The casekeep resembled an abacus, with one spindle for each card denomination, with four counters on each spindle. As a card was played, either winning or losing, one of four counters would be moved to indicate that a card of that denomination had been played. This allowed players to plan their bets by keeping track of what cards remained available in the dealing box. The operator of the case keep is called the "casekeeper" or, colloquially in the American West, the "coffin driver".
Cheating.
To give themselves more of an advantage, and to counter the losses from players cheating, dealers would also often cheat. In a fair game the house's edge was low, so dealers increasingly resorted to cheating the players to increase the profitability of the game for the house. This, too, was acknowledged by "Hoyle" editors when describing how faro banks were opened and operated: "To justify the initial expenditure, a dealer must have some permanent advantage."
By dealers.
Dealers employed several methods of cheating:
By players.
Players would routinely cheat as well. Their techniques employed distraction and sleight-of-hand, and usually involved moving their stake to a winning card, or at the very least off the losing card, without being detected. Their methods ranged from crude to creative, and worked best at a busy, fast-paced table:
Being caught cheating often resulted in a fight, or even gunfire.