From 17th Century France to 20th Century America -the Rise and Fall of Faro

Fans of the popular HBO TV series Deadwood may have noticed Al Swearengen say it is Faro that is played in his Saloon-cum-brothel, the Gem Theater. This is not a mistake on the part of the researchers for the series. It was faro, not poker that was the game of choice across the Wild West, and indeed, the whole of the United States.

In fact, a study conducted in 1882 found faro to be not just the most popular card game, but the most popular form of gambling in the US at that time. More money was wagered on faro games than on all other forms of gambling combined. And it remained the game of choice until the early 1900s, when it was supplanted by poker.

What is faro?

The game of Pharaon (pharaoh in English, eventually shortened to faro) dates back to the 17th century France.

It is actually derived from another popular French card game at the time, Basset. This game was so popular in France that it was banned in 1691, and faro emerged soon after.

Because it has a banker and several players it is a member of the Monte Bank family of card games.

How to play faro

The betting layout for faro consists of the 13 cards of the spade suite enameled on a board. These represent the cards of all suites and bets are placed here. They can be to win or to lose. Lose bets are made by placing a copper token on top of the chips.

The game uses only one deck of cards which are shuffled and placed in the dealing box, or shoe.

The dealer burned (discarded) the first card dealt. The second card dealt, the banker’s card, was placed on the right of the shoe. The next card dealt was placed on the left of the shoe and called the player’s card. These two cards made up a “turn”

All bets were settled after each turn. The banker’s card was the losing card. Bets made on that card to lose, won and vice versa. The players card was the winning card, so bets on it to win, won and to lose, lost.

The only advantage the dealer had was a “split”. This was when the banker’s card and the player’s card were of the same value. When a split occurred, the dealer kept half the total bets on that card.

The game continued in this fashion until the last card in the deck, which was also discarded.

History of faro

Faro quickly became popular in France and then spread to the rest of Europe until it was being played all over the continent, from England to Russia.

Faro was a particular favourite of the aristocracy, with the young Count Rostov losing a fortune on it in War and Peace, the famous novel by Leo Tolstoy.

It was brought from Europe to America by immigrants, most probably figures like Tolstoy’s Count Rostov, young aristocrats who, having lost the family fortune on the game in their home countries, were forced to go and try to rebuild it in the New World.

Faro quickly became democratized in this new land of opportunity and was soon being played by gamblers from all walks of life. From 1825 to 1915, a game could be found in every gambling hall, and most saloons, in the West.

In 1915 it began to lose its appeal, and by 1925 had all but disappeared. After this time the only place you could find a faro game was a few select venues in, of course, Las Vegas.

Despite this sudden and dramatic decline, the game managed to hang on for another few decades. The last recorded venue hosting a faro game was the Bingo Palace, Las Vegas, in 1978.

John Phelan

Why did it disappear?

Faro owed its popularity to two factors: it was fast and easy to play; and it had an incredibly low, almost non-existent, house edge. It was this second factor that led to its eventual demise.

Because the house edge was so low, the banker had to resort to other methods to make money on the game, and this meant only one thing, cheating.

Cheating by the dealer

They did this in several ways.

• Stacked and rigged decks. A stacked deck would contain many paired cards, which, when they came up, allowed the dealer to keep half the bets made on that card. In a rigged deck, the cards were marked so that the dealer could create pairs in the deck while shuffling.
• “Gaffed” dealing boxes. A “gaffed” dealing box was rigged in one of several different ways. The most common was the use of a small mirror or prism located somewhere inside the box. This was only visible to the dealer and would show the next card before it was dealt. The box was also fixed so the dealer could draw two cards instead of one. If the next card was heavily bet, they would simply draw two and cover up the winning card.
• Sleight of hand. Once the dealer knew which card was coming up thanks to the rigged dealing box, he could surreptitiously slide the players’ bets off it before dealing. It was a risky move but considering most faro tables were pretty noisy and chaotic places, they’d get away with it more often than not.

But even in the Old West gamblers were not a naïve bunch and they quickly came up with their own methods of cheating to even the odds back up.

Cheating by the player

Since they didn’t have access to the dealing box, players resorted to the tried and true methods of distraction and sleight of hand. The only way a player could cheat was to move their bet off a losing card without the dealer noticing. This could often be done by hand while the dealer was distracted, but there were other more effective methods.

• Using a thread or horsehair. Players would attach a silk thread or a horsehair to the bottom chip in their stake. Then, if their bet lost, they’d quickly pull the stack to the adjacent card.
• Removing the copper. In faro, a player bet on a card to win or lose. If the bet was to win, it was placed on the card, if it was to lose, a copper token was put on top of the chips. If the first card dealt, the losing card, was a match for the card bet on by the player, he won. But if the second card dealt, the winning card, matched, he lost. In this case he would simply yank the token off the bet, again with a pre-attached silk thread or horsehair. This was the safest method as there wasn’t any evidence left behind.

However, no method of cheating, by the dealer or player, was infallible, and rigged games of faro resulted in many a gunfight during its heyday.

Probably a good thing then, that particular card game has been consigned to the annals of history. But even if poker is not your thing, you’ll find plenty of other card and casino games on our site.