Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a gambling and cheating game, often practised by thimbleriggers, in which a garter is folded and held out to the punter who bets that by pricking with a pin they can hit the place where the material is folded. Almost inevitably they fail and lose their money; the 19C version used a necklace chain .

1579		Act of James VI of Scotland c. 12 in Ribton-Turner (1887) n.p.: All ydle personis ganging about in ony cuntrie of this realme, using subtill, crafty, and unlauchfull playis, as Juglarie, fast-and-lowiss, and sic utheris.
c.1595		Shakespeare Love’s Labour’s Lost III i: To sell a bargain is as cunning as fast and loose.
1822		R. Nares Gloss. (1888) I 297: fast and loose. A cheating game, whereby gipsies and other vagrants beguiled the common people of their money. It is said to be still used by low sharpers and is called pricking at the belt or girdle.
1852		Lloyds Wkly Newspaper 11 Apr. 1/2: These ‘thimble-riggers’ [...] So little did they understand / The desperate feats they took in hand / [...] / To shew their play at fast and loose.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Fast and Loose — One of the 'big three' dishonest street games sometimes played on the long-ago carnival lot [...] A long circle of necklace-chain is laid down in a complex series of loops, and the mark puts his finger into a loop he believes will remain caught on his finger when the chain is lifted. But the grifter has a way of laying the chain to control whether any loop becomes ‘fast’ on the player's finger, or comes ‘loose’.