Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US Und.) a stacked deck of cards, used by cheats; lit. and fig.

1851		Life in Boston and New England Police Gazette 4 Jan. 2/1: Changing packs, or wringing [sic] in ‘cold decks,’ is practiced in this game to a great extent.
1857		S.F. Call 3 Apr. 4: He’s got the thing all set to ring in a ‘cold deck,’ in which case he will deal himself four aces and his opponent four queens.
1876		B. Harte Gabriel Conroy II 310: You’ve been [...] playin’ it very low down on my moral and religious nature, and generally ringin’ in a cold deck on my spiritual condition for the last five years.
1878–9		A. Garcia Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 138: [He] now knew all the cards in the squaws’ cold deck.
1883		Sportsman (Melbourne) 22 Aug. 2/5: You require a close study of Houdens ‘Tricks at Cards’ to [...] hold your own at the ‘little games’ played in an aristocratic suburb. Even the ‘coal deck’ is not unknown.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 24: On my deal I called their attention to something, and at the same time came up with the ‘cold deck’.
1889		‘Jack the Ripper’ letter July in Evans & Skinner Jack the Ripper (2001) 272: [N]o more crimping at poker, and the sucker shall have a look in no more ringing in a cold deck no more reflectors [...] I guess he may chuck his bugs.
1894		Mirror of Life 15 Dec. 2/4: [He] extracted a watch, declaring that when he lost it in a poker game a ‘cold dick’ [sic] was ‘rung in’.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 218: No cold deck goes. He sees plumb through every kyard you holds.
1907		Chicago Record-Herald 18 Aug. n.p.: The most expert manipulators of cards that ever dealt a second or shifted a cold deck sat behind the tables.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 174: We couldn’t mark cards, deal from the bottom, an’ ring in cold decks like the others.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 114: If you come back after that, it will be a new deal — from a cold deck.
1938		H. Asbury Sucker’s Progress 243: Devol was adept at dice and short cards, especially when it came to ringing in cold decks and ‘laying the bottom stock’.
1947		C.J. Lovell ‘The Background of Mark Twain’s Vocabulary’ in AS XXII:2 90: cold deck. A deck of cards prepared to benefit one of the players.
1958		L.F. Cooley Run For Home (1959) 145: I also caught a lousy fink who plays with a cold deck!
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 111: I suppose Acton’s a good lawyer, but I don’t think he knows the cold deck he’s up against.
1971		T. Thackrey Thief 153: I was trying to make it legit, do right. It’s just that the whole deal was a cold deck.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.