Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US gambling) playing cards of which the sides and/or ends have been slightly trimmed to help cheating; cit. 1949 seems to be a misunderstanding.

1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 24 Sept. n.p.: ‘Well, you can make something out of him, he’s green yet! Ain’t he, Jack?’ ‘Yes, I worked the strippers on him for fifty.’ ‘And I [...] wrung in two of three packs on him’.
1847		J.H. Green Arts and Miseries of Gambling 121: When cards are prepared [...] they are called strippers.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 117: strippers Cards cut at the sides for the purpose of carrying on a skinning game.
1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 228: A tender-foot got in amongst the gamblers [...] and what with ‘strippers,’ and ‘stocking,’ and ‘cold decks,’ and ‘bugs,’ and ‘reflectors,’ and ‘codes,’ and so forth, he hadn’t the ghost of a show.
1919		Mirror (Sydney) 31 Aug. 8/3: Poker players have their ‘strippers,’ where the sides of the cards are faked in such a way that the dealer knows what cards he is dealing to other players.
1928		Morn. Call (Allentown, PA) 27 May 29/2: ‘Strippers’ are cards witjh the edges shaved that they may be read at a glance.
1938		(con. 1820s+) H. Asbury Sucker’s Progress 13: [There were] a flood of prepared cards. Some were strippers, which meant that the sides and ends of certain cards in each suit had been trimmed [...] Strippers were cut in various ways, the most popular being hollows, rounds, rakes, wedges, and concave and convex.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 228: stripper [...] extra wide cards in a deck which enable a dishonest gambler to strip out cards he needs.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 214/2: Strippers. A deck of cards in which all but the key-cards have been trimmed, for swindling.
1961		J. Scarne Complete Guide to Gambling 684: Low Belly Strippers – a crooked deck of cards [...] making it possible for the cheat to cut to a low or high card at will.
1963		A.E. Morgan Six-Eleven (1966) 136: Suppose you have all these gimmicks, the marked deck, the belly strippers.