The Art of the Con (21 page)

Once I got my head around this simple secret and why it was so powerful, I needed to know more. To practice, I built a simple little joint with a game chart from an old gambler's supply catalog, eight tiny dice, and a large leather cup. Quickly, I learned how unfair the game really was when played honestly. I then began to experiment with ways to fake the count.

Jeff McBride, a fellow magician, had worked a razzle joint one summer when he was a teenager. I called him long-distance to discuss how his version of the game was played. Jeff tipped me to a simple secret that made the miscount almost impossible to detect and looked every bit as fair as an honest count. Once I'd mastered this, I started practicing on my kids and in a few weeks I was ready to do it for real, but it took two more years before razzle became part of
The Real Hustle
. During this time I learned more about the game and that it had been banned many times because it was just too strong.

Mark Mason told me that he always went for the money and is now quite open about his attitude in those days. “There were some guys who would always leave them a few bucks. Me? No . . . If it was to be got, I took everything I could get. I'd actually try to see inside their wallet . . .” In Blackpool, variations on the classic razzle joint ripped off so many tourists that after hundreds were left penniless, the town council stepped in and banned all numbers games, which made way for the hoopla stalls to take over. In order to demonstrate the razzle dazzle for TV, I needed to show just how powerful it could be and how much money it could make.

The game works like this: Once someone approaches the stall, I engage them in a little chat, talking about the prizes and making sure they understand what they might win. If the mark is interested, then I sell him a couple of rolls to get him started. After each roll, I pick up the marbles one at a time and toss them back into the cup, adding up each number to create their total for that roll. As I pick them up, the total increases so I'm never calling out the numbers that the marbles are sitting in, just the sum of these numbers as it increases. “Two, six, twelve, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-four, twenty-nine, thirty-five!” Counted this way it's very hard to follow and correlate the numbers for each ball and the total. Using the counting trick I'd learned from Jeff, I could easily manipulate the total until the last two or three marbles brought me to a winning number. Within the first couple of rolls, I'd miscount to forty-four, which gives five points to the player.
That
takes him halfway toward a prize so long as he keeps playing. Now I slow down and let the odds take over, counting fairly until the player hits a roll of twenty-nine (the most common number, rolled fairly), which is marked on the chart as “ADD.” This number forces him to play for more money, sometimes even doubling the price per roll. After a couple of twenty-nines, I miscount again to throw him another point or two and continue feeding the player points as the price to play steadily increases.

The prizes can also be increased during the game, and on many game charts, certain numbers are labeled “HP,” which can mean whatever the operator chooses! Most often, “HP” is translated as a “House Prize,” where either a piece of plush is given to the mark to keep him happy or another big prize is added to the mark's ultimate goal. I've heard of some hustlers who use “HP” as “Half Points” in order to reduce the player's score! Initially, this seemed unnecessary to me. Then I understood that it allowed the con artist to continue awarding points so the player is always scoring while occasionally being forced back. Also, each time the player's points were halved, another prize could be added. The result is that the player gets a lot more action (winning and losing) and the game operator eventually offers to ignore the “HP” rolls (and stop reducing his score) as further leverage to keep him playing. Psychologically, this gives the mark the impression of progress, when of course, there has been none.

It's not an easy game to follow unless you're actually playing, but it should be clear that the operator is in complete control of the outcome. The only thing getting played in the razzle dazzle is the mark. One of the most powerful aspects of the razz is its ability to put the victim on “the send”—to a cash machine. Once they've lost everything they have, there is a built-in angle that hustlers use to keep them playing if they can get more money, which is what sent my mark running toward the ATM on the show.

By the time the player is out of money, his score could be as much as nine and a half points—painfully close to the ten points needed to win. This is where the operator leans into his sucker to offer him a deal he can't refuse. Claiming that he's never seen such bad luck and that he feels sorry for the player, the hustler offers to hold the score for five minutes if the player can get more money. He then sweetens the deal by offering his mark twenty rolls to make that last half point, and shows all the money the player's lost so far and adds it to his potential prize! The catch is that the player has to come back with whatever amount the hustler demands to continue playing. In one devastating move, the con artist has upped the stakes, offered an irresistible deal,
and
restricted how much time the victim has to act, making this a perfect example of a con game in action. It relies a great deal on the “sunk-cost fallacy” that keeps gamblers chasing their losses with more money. As the gambler's prayer says: “Please God, let me break even. I need the money!”

For my first mark on
The Real Hustle
, offering to hold the score until he came back with more money was a powerful hook. His common sense began to wake up and I could feel him resisting; then he saw all of the money he'd lost, which I folded and placed under one of the prizes. I then said “If you can get another three hundred, I'll hold the score and I'll let you win back your money. I can't say fairer than that.” That was all I needed to say. Five minutes later he returned with more cash and I gave him twenty rolls to make half a point. This time I counted every roll fairly and let him follow along until the last roll sent him home, broke.

We repeated the scam four times and in every case, if they could go and get more money, they did so. I calculated that, based on the daily maximum withdrawal from an ATM and the amount of cash most people would carry, making a thousand pounds an hour would be easy. In a holiday destination such as Blackpool, where people tend to bring more cash, the potential hourly score could be much higher and the damage to the mark much more severe. How many victims have lost all of their savings at the beginning of their vacation and had to take their family home early? Luckily for our victims in Bournemouth, I gave back all of their money!

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.

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

H
is 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.