Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. anyone who risks their luck, usu. foolishly, although the over-riding image is of their ‘getting away with it’; thus chancing adj.

[1884		R. Lawson Upton-on-Severn Words 12: Chancer, one who makes rash and inexact statements. ‘She’s a bit of a chancer.’].
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 51: A Chancer: a prevaricator.: a ‘half-truther.’ One taking the chance of being found out.
1926		S. O’Casey Plough and the Stars Act II: I’m not goin’ to let you demean yourself be talkin’ to a tittherin’ chancer.
1929		B. Duffy Rocky Road 148: Is he a chancer that ye’d think was tryin’ to walk on eggs and not break them.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 115: I can smell a chancer at five ’undred yards.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 102: Put a sock in it, you little chancer.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 87: This is Willie Egan, the biggest chancer in Rathmines.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 33: Must be silly as a fucking goat [...] Even using his own name. I wonder if some team put him in there. Could be he’s just a chancer.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 367: In Keith’s spin-off of it, the star-crossed lover looks like an old chancer whose steed has fallen ten yards from the post.
1993		(con. 1930s) M. Verdon Shawlies, Echo Boys, the Marsh and the Lanes 19: I’ve heard them say Cork people are a bit underhand – awful chancers.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 125: She married ma Grandad first likes, a chancin auld cowboy fae County Wexford.
2004		Guardian 23 Jan. 6: These criminals are defined as ‘chancers’ – unarmed, unskilled opportunists who will generally only turn violent if they are provoked.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 3012: ‘[Y]ou’re a chancer, Gerry. Or else you’re a wanker’.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 20: The dubious chancers who inhabited that scene [i.e. clubs].
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles 121: ‘A spell,’ she whispers. ‘To ward off ex-girlfriends and pretty little chancers’.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 230: [H]e’d left those chancers in his wake a long time ago.
2020		G. Disher Consolation 184: Here was a nasty old chancer, a wheeler and dealer at the most miserable level of commerce.

2. (UK milit.) a liar.

1896

‘Army Slang’ in Regiment 11 Apr. 31/2: A lie, or a liar, is known as a ‘chancer’.

3. a bet, a wager.

1996

J. Cameron It Was An Accident 155: They also had a little chancer on me and the boys getting it sorted.