Gamblers
were captivating Wild West figures, known for their risk taking and daring
exploits. Some became famous. Others infamous. Regardless, each one were
memorable in their own way.
Gamblers of the Wild West
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| Poker Alice |
Poker Alice—Alice
Ivers Duffield Tubbs Huckert —carried a gun, smoked cigars, wore the
latest fashions, and never gambled on Sundays. On her
best nights, she’d take home $6,000 by card counting and figuring odds as well
as distracting male players with her beauty.
Bat Masterson, a gambler and gunfighter,
won enough at cards to set up his own Olympic Athletic Club, promoting
up-and-coming boxers and organizing pools on matches.
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| Bat Masterson |
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| Madame Moustache |
Kitty Leroy gave up her professional dancing career at age 20,
to become a faro dealer and gambler. She owned over a dozen guns and knives,
which she’d pull out in a pinch. She set up the Mint Gambling Saloon with
Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota. In 1877, her
fifth husband flew into a jealous rage over her many affairs, shot her dead, and
then killed himself.
Wild Bill
Hickok—James Butler Hickok was involved in several
shootouts and spied for the Union Army during the Civil War. He died with cards
in his hand, shot in the back after busting out a competitor. Thereafter, his
last hand (two pair, black aces and eights with an unknown hole card) was known
as ‘dead man’s hand.
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| Wild Bill Hickock |
Dona Maria
Getrudes Barcelo turned to
gambling to support her children after her husband ran off. A beauty with a
knack for cards, she was called ‘la Tules’ (Spanish for ‘thin’ or ‘reed’).
Barcelo became the richest woman in Santa Fe as well as the most famous female
gambler of her time.
Wyatt Berry
Stapp Earp was
actually listed as a professional gambler in the 1887 San Diego City
Directory. He was also a deputy sheriff,
then later a marshal, in Arizona Territory. In
Tombstone, Earp owned gambling interests in several saloons where he not only
dealt Faro but also avidly bucked the bank. Notably he worked as a manager at the Oriental saloon
running the faro tables and as an enforcer, keeping gamblers out of fights and gunfire.
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| Wyatt Earp |
Lottie Deno—Carlotta J. Thompkins was the model for Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke. Her father taught her every card trick he knew. By
fleecing Doc Holiday at poker once, she earned the title ‘Poker Queen.’ In
Texas, she fell in love with a gambling man named Frank Thurmond, but he was
accused of murder, so she fled with him to New Mexico where they opened a hotel
and gambling room. Lottie also owned a restaurant in Silver City where she and
Frank got married in 1880.
Games Of Chance
Faro
The most
popular game in the West was faro. Using a green cloth-covered layout with
painted images of 13 cards, players placed chips, called checks, on the picture
of the card they thought would win and a token called a copper on top the
checks to bet that a card would lose.
They could back any number of cards, change bets between turns, and wager
if the face value would be odd, even, or the higher of the turn. The dealer
dealt two cards per turn. If a pair turned up, the house took half of any bet
on that card, these were called splits. Cheating in Faro was so prevalent that
American editions of Hoyle’s rules carried disclaimers that honest faro could
no longer be found.
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| Faro |
Three Card Monte
Three Card Monte was a scheme. A dealer laid three
cards face down then picked up one and showed it to the player. They’d put that
target card back, face down, and quickly move the three cards around. The
player tried to pick the target card. The dealer lured people into the game by
using a partner, disguised as an everyday player. The dealer moved the cards
slowly when he was playing with his accomplice, who always won. So, the audience, who thought they were watching
a real game, grew confident that they could find the target card. The dealer let
real players win the first few rounds to get them to bet more. Then, they’d speed
up their shuffling. They also used sleight of hand and often bent corners to
cheat the players. The famous gambler Jefferson Randolph Smith II died in a
shootout over gold he’d scammed three miners out of in a game of Three Card
Monte.
Vingt et Un
Vint
et Un is the French name for Blackjack or twenty one. The aim is to get 21
points without going over 21 or to beat the dealer’s score.
Roulette
Roulette
tables have a wheel at the top of the table, and under it is a layout of the
options you can place your bet on. Bets can be placed on high, numbers 19 to
36, or low, numbers 1 to 18, the color of black or red, or whether it will be
an odd or even number, and on a single number or several different numbers at a
time. A croupier spins the roulette wheel in one direction and in the opposite
direction they spin the ball in a circular track that runs around the inside of
the roulette wheel. When the ball slows down it drops into a number on the
wheel.
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| Roulette |
Poker
Poker
wasn’t popular at first because it was a slower paced game, but eventually it could
be found in most gambling halls. Old west poker decks had twenty cards and all
of them were dealt to the players. There weren’t any draws, everyone had to
play the cards they were dealt.
Gambling Scandals
Most
scandals had to do with cheating which was rampant. One cheating method players
used a lot was the horsehair copper-simply—a copper with a strand of horsehair
attached was secretly yanked from a winning card.
Soapy Smith was a notorious cheat who formed the
Soap Gang, which ran shell, Three Card Monte, and rigged poker games. He was
known for showing a crowd a bill, sometimes as high as $100, then wrap it up in
a bar of soap, place it amongst normal soap bars, and invite the crowd to
auction for the bar they thought contained the cash. But, there wasn’t any
money in any of the soap in the pile. He used sleight of hand to trick the
customers. He also employed accomplices in the crowd, who would unwrap the soap
and claim they’d won a large amount of money. He died in a shootout over gold
he’d scammed out of three miners in a game of Three Card Monte.
Cheating
often led to gunfights. Wild Bill
and Bat Masterson were shot by poor poker losers. Poker Alice shot a man who
accused her boyfriend of cheating. Lottie killed a man who swindled her. And, Doc
Holiday killed one man for grabbing his chips, and another for looking at the
discards.
Mystery Mesa, book fifteen in the Redemption Mountain
Historical Western Romance Series is now on preorder through most retailers!
