The Art of the Con

by R. Paul Wilson

  I adore this scam because it’s powerful, it’s clever, and it’s one of the most effective illustrations of how easily people can get sucked into a con game, but it also reminds me of just how badly people can be affected by this sort of crime. The razzle doesn’t merely steal your money, it convinces you that you were unlucky and irresponsible at the same time. Walking away, most suckers have no idea how they were able to lose so much, so quickly. They feel oh so close and just so unlucky, when it was all designed to make them feel that way. Luck had nothing to do with it.

  On the midway, in the middle of the fair, there’s a lot of fun to be had, but wherever you find them, con games like hoopla and the razzle dazzle succeed because they appear to be just as harmless. Never forget that these are textbook scams designed to trap their victims and squeeze them for every penny. Next time a carny offers you the chance to play for bigger stakes, stick to the soft toys. Pay to play, not to win.

  Footnote

  * Mark gave up that life decades ago and is now a passionate advocate of informing and protecting the public.

  STREET GOT GAME

  His hands were deep inside the pockets of his five-hundred-dollar blue jeans, and I could see through the overpriced denim that his right hand was tightly holding onto his wallet. He leaned forward, chin down, eyes watching every move—he was clearly ready to pop. The sweat on his brow meant it was only a matter of time before he jumped into the game.

  I was in Las Vegas and had spent several weeks studying various casino games, learning ways to beat them from grifters and advantage players. The game I was watching was not inside a casino, it was on the street, right outside Caesar’s Palace on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo. It was run by a man in his fifties, throwing three playing cards onto a pile of cardboard boxes. The idea was to follow the queen of hearts and try to pick it out after the cards were mixed. The “dealer” was surrounded by people, some of whom pushed and shoved to take part, even throwing money at the cards if they could find the lady.

  My hand was holding onto my own wallet but for a different reason. I knew that this game was nothing more than an operatic scam, and if I didn’t bet, I might just as soon have my pocket picked clean by someone in the crowd. I was in the front line, watching every move. Across from me, I saw the sucker was lit up like a Christmas tree, ready to jump in at any moment; the heat was on as the hustler pressed me to join the game or get lost. Someone threw a fifty-dollar bill onto the queen and a hundred dollars was quickly passed to the “winner” by the dealer. Again, the cards were shown and thrown; the sucker finally pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He bet on a card but the previous player had bet his hundred dollars on the same card. “I gotta take the bigger man!” the dealer shouted as he showed the queen and paid the other guy.

  I started to feel the squeeze as people on either side blocked me from moving back while the dealer upped the pressure on me to play. I realized that, to this cardsharp, I must have looked just as ripe as the other guy, who was starting to turn red under the shifting neon streetlights. Finally, the dealer accidentally dropped a card, and as he bent over to pick it up, someone in the crowd reached for the queen and bit down on the corner with a mouth full of yellow teeth. The crippled card was replaced on top of the boxes before the dealer returned and continued to play without noticing the sharp bend that had appeared on his money card. Once the cards were mixed, the dealer called for bets and the sucker saw his big chance. A thick, folded wad of cash was placed on the bent card. “Fourteen hundred!” he shouted, triumphantly. “That’s fourteen hundred fucking dollars!”

  The dealer didn’t miss a beat. He told the sucker to turn over the card and, as soon as we all saw that the bent card was not the queen, the cash was gone. Someone in the crowd shouted “Cops!” and suddenly, the sucker and I were alone on the streetcorner, staring at a crimped card that had cost him a small fortune.

  There is no such thing as an actual street game. That fact should be enough to keep people away from Three-Card Monte, the Shell and Pea, the Razzle, and the Endless Chain, but experience tells me otherwise. A hustler once told me that “you don’t need to be a dummy to play but it sure does help!” I’d argue that, no matter how intelligent you might be, walking up to a game on the street is nothing but a dumb move with expensive consequences.

  Magicians are fascinated by street games. There are many books, pamphlets, and instructional videos dedicated to the genre. A few companies sell the required props, which are often much better than those used by professional hustlers. The shell and pea has become a very popular performance piece with artists like Bob Sheets creating entertaining, funny, and magical presentations. Some performers use injection-molded shells, balanced perfectly to avoid accidentally flipping over; others use beautifully painted shells in the shape of scarab beetles. On the street, a few bottle caps and a rolled up piece of tape are enough to get the money.

  When I speak to conjurors about these scams, they reveal a wealth of ideas and techniques designed to steal the pea, move a card, or manipulate an outcome, but they rarely consider the psychological trickery that manipulates a mark; after all, it is of little use when there’s no money on the table. Without any skin in the game, the audience is passive and interested only in the movement of objects, so the magician’s job is to make this as entertaining as possible.

  Watching Bob Sheets perform his signature routine is a lesson in legerdemain. Bob’s repertoire of sleights and subtleties is far greater than your average hustler because, on the street, one simple move can steal thousands of dollars. Conversations with Bob, Whit Haydn, and other experts have always been revealing, but as they will tell you, the simplicity of the street game is one of its greatest strengths, and most hustlers have a limited but effective repertoire.

  First, let’s establish that it’s not a “game.” The objective of the hustler is not to offer odds or to pay winners under any circumstances. There are only two possible outcomes, depending on your ability to resist peer pressure and temptation: Either you’ll lose money or you won’t. Street games are theatrical muggings designed to fool people into thinking they have the upper hand, using techniques that have been successfully ripping off suckers for centuries. Many victims are well aware that these games are crooked, but, armed with a little information, they walk up to a game thinking they might be able to “spot the move.” A few minutes later they’re broke and wondering what the hell just happened.

  There’s a lot we can learn from street games like three-card monte or the shell and pea. Many writers point to sleight of hand and clever gotchas as the secret to these scams. These are important elements and fascinating to be sure, but swapping out a bent card only works if the mark makes a bet in the first place. And getting the mark to bet enough to make the scam worth someone’s while is determined by other, more powerful factors. Like many scams, the size of the prize is determined during the build-up to the steal. It’s a game of foreplay where the final outcome is a product of psychological and physical dexterity. The hook is the game itself, the line is the journey to the big bet (when the mark thinks they have the upper hand), and the sinker is a clever twist that keeps the hustler one step ahead of the crowd.

  Going straight for the sucker’s money is clumsy and less profitable than manipulating the mark into betting everything he has on the turn of a card or the location of a pea. Here is where the real con game happens. Any idiot can trick someone into losing a single bet, but it takes hustle to get the mark to bet everything he has.

  In 2006 I was in Stockholm for a conference and spent my spare time walking around the city. At that time there were several shell mobs working the streets, starting games on the edge of popular thoroughfares while spotters kept an eye out for the police. I spent a day following two of these gangs as they scammed their way from one street to the next, making a couple of hundred euros with every setup. Both mobs played an identical scam, and at the end of the day I saw them meet in a nearby restaurant with what I as
sume to be a third group. Twelve people making three to five thousand euros per hour is a healthy profit, and I have no doubt they’re still playing today. They played on a piece of carpet that was dropped onto the ground and used matchbox drawers and a piece of makeup sponge that was wrapped in white masking tape (they dropped one as they walked away from a group of baffled German tourists and I was quick to grab my souvenir). The operator, who ran the game, leaned down to mix the boxes as the crowd tried to guess where the ball was hiding. An attractive girl watched the crowd as the operator pitched the game until their shills were surrounded by potential victims.

  The job of a shill is to play the game according to a predetermined plan, but also to follow instructions from the operator as he tries to work someone into the game. The common assumption is that the shills win money to attract suckers and prove the game can be won, but they serve a more important purpose. Once a victim has been identified, the operator uses the shills to stall him until he’s ready to lose everything. The mob (a team who operate street games) might take a few bucks from someone to see if they’ve got gamble, but if that causes them to walk away, taking twenty dollars might cost them the chance to steal hundreds.

  In Sweden, the shell mob had a simple way of determining how much their victims had to lose and manipulated them into betting it all at once. The girl was a professional roper with an eye for the right face in a crowd. Once she spotted someone with the desired look, she moved in and pushed her way to the sucker’s side. Meanwhile, the operator traded money with the shills or took the occasional bet from members of the crowd as the roper sank her claws into their real target. “It’s in the first one, over there,” she’d tell them, accurately predicting the winning box every time. Slowly, she’d move closer, pointing out the location of the ball as the shills seemed to always bet on the wrong boxes. In a few short minutes, the mark was listening to every word with wallet in hand, and as soon as he went for the money, the same scenario was played out every time.

  With the roper now holding onto his arm, the mark would take out a bill in order to make a bet and the girl would peek into the wallet to see how much he had. She’d point out one of the boxes and the sucker would hold out his cash, but one of the shills would jump in to bet more money on a losing box. The operator took the bigger bet but showed that the sucker had made the right choice. By now, the girl was breathing into his ear, whispering that he should bet everything on the next round. The ball was tossed under one of the boxes and they were quickly mixed, but this time the winning box was accidentally tipped up slightly at the front end, revealing the ball underneath. The mark would immediately pull out his money as the roper encouraged him to place it all on the winning box. I even saw a girl pull more cash from one guy’s wallet to make sure they got it all! The mark was then invited to lean down and look under the box himself. The ball was gone, and by the time he stood up, the girl was too. Before the bewildered victim knew it, he was alone and penniless.

  I was fascinated by this simple operation and found the use of a pretty girl to be a clever addition to the traditional scam. Typically, most monte mobs depend on an operator to run the game, some shills to follow instructions, and a couple of spotters to act as lookouts for the police. The operator usually does all of the work and decides how best to work each mark up to a big bet. The Swedish mob employed their roper to devastating effect, and each time I watched them play, she never failed to manipulate the mark. I even saw the same approach used on a married man as the shills pushed between him and his wife so the roper could step in and work her magic. When that game was over, I suspect that losing money was the least of his problems. This variation is not new, in fact it’s mentioned in many books on the subject, where shills would tip off other players until they had enough confidence to place a bet. In modern versions, the closest I’d seen was a rough hustler badgering members of the crowd for “not having the balls to bet.” This was a subtler and more powerful approach that played on more than the mark’s desire to win money; it worked on his ego, too.

  That night I discussed my observations with a performer who specialized in the three-shell game and had performed thousands of shows talking about “how they get you” before raising the roof with his magical version of the game. Surprisingly, he wasn’t interested in seeing the Swedish mob work. “They’re all Russians. Amateurs. A real mob has an Englishman, a French girl. . . .” And so he went on to describe his perfect “mob.” For him, it was a performance piece and unless they fit his theatrical ideals, or used a move he hadn’t seen before, my Russian gang in Stockholm was of little interest. Personally, I understand his point of view. He’s an artist and for him it’s all a show. Other performers have made the mistake of thinking that hustlers share the same interests and have tried to engage monte mobs to discuss methods. This is like Robert De Niro trying to do mix it up with real mobsters just because he once played Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II! It’s understandable that magicians care more about technical details because they are the tools to building an act, but when the same methods are revealed to the public in an effort to expose street games, the natural inclination to focus on sleight of hand distracts people from the real danger.

  Even if you are completely familiar with “the hype,” “the steal,” “the lay down,” or “the bent corner,” there’s no chance of winning. If you step up looking to be a smart ass, the chances are you’re mixing it up with people who are much more dangerous than you, and I mean physically, and it’s never a good idea to get between hyenas and their supper. If you think you can outplay a street mob, you’re just as juicy a mark as all the other suckers waiting to play. Operators know when someone is wise to the standard methods and many are able to exploit a player’s knowledge with a well-placed double-bluff. In these circumstances, the build-up is ultimately the same while the final switch can be changed, or the gang simply waits until a know-it-all throws down his cash, then runs away with it!

  When watching a street game, we see classic scams at work, manipulating emotions and building expectation while focusing the mark on a perceived advantage until they’re ready to burst. The sleight of hand used is fascinating, but without the mechanics of a good con game it wouldn’t be worth the hustler’s time to learn. It would remain nothing more than an entertaining con-juror’s trick.

  The Work

  Monte relies on several moves to change the expected order of three objects before or after they are mixed. With playing cards, there is often a heavy downward bend placed along the middle of each card so that the center of each card is raised above the playing surface. I’ve seen a couple of variations on this where the cards are roughly bent with a sharp v-shaped fold running along the card so that the center is raised but the rest of the card lies flat. I’ve also seen it played on pieces of thick carpet with no bend in the cards.

  Variations are played with round black rubber discs and a piece of white paper stuck to one or with cardboard beer mats and even square pieces of wood with a clear grain running in one direction. In the last ten years, the discs have been more common on the street than cards, but to more easily understand how the game works, I’ll describe the classic version of Find The Lady.

  The Hype

  The most important sleight is “the hype,” where two cards are openly picked up at once, one over the other, maintaining a tiny gap between the two but aligned along one edge. The lowermost face is then shown with a rotation of the wrist before being turned down and tossed to the table. There is a fair hype and a crooked hype, and the success of this move depends on them looking identical. With a fair hype, the lower card that was just shown drops to the table with a downward swing that hinges at the wrist as the thumb and fingers release pressure on the outer and inner edges of that card. The fake hype mimics these actions exactly, showing the face card of a pair but throwing the uppermost card in an identical wrist turn. The illusion can be perfect when performed well.

  The fair hype is clearly demonstrated severa
l times before any money is wagered, but when the operator spots an easy mark, the fake hype is used to switch the winner for a loser so the crowd is following the wrong card from the outset. I’ve only seen the hype used this way to grab a few bucks from curious marks or to find a suitable victim for the build-up. Many people walk away as soon as they lose but when someone stays, there’s a chance he might be rich pickings if he takes the bait. Action might come from anyone in the crowd, so there are strategies to deal with anyone who bets randomly or can follow the hype. If money is forced onto the correct card, there are several sleights that can switch out that card for a loser.

  The “Mexican Turnover” uses a card held by the operator to flip over another card on the table, switching these cards in the process. The card that began on the table ends up in the operator’s hand, while the card that started face down in his hand is now face up on the table. I’ve seen magicians do this move for decades and it almost always looks terrible, but on the street, it is performed without hesitation in a fluid, continuous action that’s impossible to follow with the naked eye. In a street game, the winning card is switched out and immediately switched in as the other face down card is flipped over. In action, someone picks the money-card, then the operator picks up a loser and uses it to flip the winner face up, switching it so the winner is now in his hand. The winner is then used to flip over the other face down card on the table and the switch is repeated so the winner turns up at that position. Now the losing card that’s in the operator’s hand is shown and the sequence complete.