designated "Skin Faro," but it is altogether unlikely that
he may be acquainted with the _modus operandi_ of the game. Skin faro is
not played at a regular establishment in which the player against the
bank is fleeced. The game is liable to drift against the stranger in his
journey to New York, or indeed on any railroad or steamboat, and the
"point" is to get the unsophisticated countryman to be banker. In this
"racket" it is the banker who is to be skinned. According to a recent
authority the ordinary process is something like this:

"After the topic has been adroitly introduced and the party worked up to
the desire to play, it is proposed that the man with the most money
shall act as banker. Now, in an ordinary square game, few would be
unwilling to stand in this position, for though the risk is
considerable, the profit is generally slow but certain. At this point
the question rises as to who has a pack of cards. The question is soon
answered; there always is a pack handy, and the swindlers have it; and
this pack, if examined, will be found to contain a neat round pin-hole
through the center of the pack. The object of this pin-hole is as
follows: the player against the bank makes his boldest play on the turn,
that is, at the end of the game, when there are only three cards out,
tarry; five, nine and all the aces, except spades, can be _guessed_ with
almost uniform certainty by any one looking on the dealer's hand just
before he is about to turn the last two cards (excluding the one left in
_hoc_). As the bank pays four for one 'on the turn,' it is a very good
thing for the player, and the faro banker, for the nonce the would-be
sport, soon finds himself cleaned out."

The people who frequent gambling-houses may be divided into two classes:
occasional gamblers and professional gamblers. Among the first may be
placed those attracted by curiosity, and those strangers already
referred to who are roped in by salaried intermediaries. The second is
composed of men who gamble to retrieve their losses, or those who try to
deceive and lull their grief through the exciting diversions that
pervade these seductive "hells."

CHAPTER XXI.

GAMBLING MADE EASY.

_The Last Ingenious Scheme to Fool the Police--Flat-Houses Turned into
Gambling Houses--"Stud-Horse Poker," and "Hide the Heart."_

The following timely article on the newest racket in gambling in the
City of New York is from the _Sunday Mercury_ of June 20, 18