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in Sucker’s Progress (1938) 71: There is but one way to gamble successfully, and that is to get Tools to work with and have the best of every Game you get into.at best (of it), n.
in Sucker’s Progress (1938) 71: There is but one way to gamble successfully, and that is to get Tools to work with and have the best of every Game you get into. Sucker’s Progress 42: An imbecile has as much chance to win at Craps as the most intelligent of men; he is required only to roll the dice away from him, grunt heavily, and utter one or more of the magic phrases, such as [...] ‘An eighter from Decatur!’.at Ada from Decatur, n.
(con. 1820s+) Sucker’s Progress 14: In the heyday of American gambling, a first-class faro dealer, variously called a ‘mechanic’ and an ‘artist,’ was paid from $100 to $200 a week.at artist, n.
Sucker’s Progress 254: In all these commercial undertaking Colonel Bryant had partners who were invariably left holding the bag.at hold the bag, v.
Sucker’s Progress 235: He loved to ‘talk big’—he had killed a dozen men in duels, rescued maidens in distress, invented appliances for steamboats and he owned half the land and slaves on either side of the river.at talk big (v.) under big, adv.
(ref. to late 18C) Sucker’s Progress 42: It is interesting to note that in England before the beginning of the nineteenth century dice were commonly known as ‘the bones’ and ‘the doctors,’ while casting them was ‘rolling the bones’.at roll the bones (v.) under bones, n.1
Sucker’s Progress 187: A dealer was robbed by a method known as ‘bonneting’ — that is, a group of rowdies would fling a blanket over his head, and [...] make off with his chips and whatever money happened to be in the card box.at bonnet, v.
Sucker’s Progress 58: To understand how anyone could succumb to such an obvious brace game it is necessary to remember that before the telephone, the radio, and widely circulated magazines and newspapers, the average American countryman and small-town resident was a real greenhorn, made to order for the city slicker.at brace game, n.
Sucker’s Progress 205: Three Card Monte throwers, also called ‘Broad pitchers’ because a playing card was known as a ‘Broad,’ began to appear.at broads, n.
Sucker’s Progress 205: Three Card Monte throwers, also called ‘Broad pitchers’ because a playing card was known as a ‘Broad,’ began to appear.at broad pitcher (n.) under broads, n.
Sucker’s Progress 362: He walked into Rynders’ Empire Club in Park Row and asked for Dutch Charley, but was told that the bruiser had gone to the races.at bruiser, n.
Sucker’s Progress 327: Men of every class crowded into the Denver House to buck the games.at buck, v.2
Sucker’s Progress 57: This so called gambling game [...] was introduced into San Francisco by a crooked gambler who made various changes in the method of play and christened it Banco. After a few years this was corrupted into Bunco, sometimes spelled Bunko, and in time Bunco came to be a general term applied to all swindling and confidence games, while the sharpers who practiced them were called Bunco men.at bunco, n.
Sucker’s Progress 206: Ashby impersonated the young man’s fiddle-playing old Pappy who didn’t have all his buttons.at not have all one’s buttons (v.) under button, n.1
Sucker’s Progress 205: River gamblers seldom operated alone [...] They capped and roped for one another’s banking games.at cap, v.3
Sucker’s Progress 415: A jostling mass of cappers, steerers, ropers-in and pickers-up, fighting over the suckers and literally dragging their prey into the gambling houses.at capper, n.1
Sucker’s Progress 42: A great many other games of chance, some of them downright swindles from start to finish, have enjoyed more or less lengthy periods of popularity in various sections of the United States [...]: Monte, Keno, Three-Card Monte.at three-card monte, n.
Sucker’s Progress 58: Oscar Wilde [...] was caught for several thousand dollars by Hungry Joe Lewis, a cadaverous crook.at catch, v.1
(con. mid-19C) Sucker’s Progress 185: Those extraordinary gambling dens genrally known as Wolf-Traps, but sometimes as Snap Houses, Deadfalls and Ten Per Cent Houses, are said to have originated in Cincinnati about 1835.at ten per cent house, n.
Sucker’s Progress 336: Thompson finally passed in his own checks on the night of March 11, 1884, when he and King Fisher [...] were shot down in a variety theater.at pass in one’s checks (v.) under check, n.1
Sucker’s Progress 424: In Pawtucket, or even in Providence, this would have been important money, but in New York it was chicken feed.at chickenfeed, n.
Sucker’s Progress 271: For some forty years hogs and Cincinnati were so nearly synonymous in the public mind that pigs-feet were called ‘Cincinnati oysters,’ and in many places were so listed on restaurant menus.at Cincinnati oysters (n.) under Cincinnati, n.
(con. 1830s) Sucker’s Progress 208: At length one of the ‘planters’ dealt Bowie a hand which any Poker player would bet as long as he could see, and which Bowie recognized as being intended for the big cleanup.at clean-up, n.
Sucker’s Progress 35: The sharper [...] used the marker and stripped cards [...] to cold deck the sucker, or surreptitiously exchange his own pack for one actually in the game.at cold-deck, v.1
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’.at cold deck, n.
Sucker’s Progress 277: During the War the Spencer House was known as a ‘copperhead hotel,’ and the soundproof room was frequently used for meetings of Southern spies and sympathizers.at copperhead, n.
(ref. to 18C–19C) Sucker’s Progress 42: A throw of two aces at Hazard has always been called a crab.at crabs, n.1
(con. c.1835–55) Sucker’s Progress 185: Those extraordinary gambling dens generally known as Wolf-Traps, but sometimes as Snap Houses, Deadfalls and Ten Per Cent Houses, are said to have originated in Cincinnati about 1835.at dead fall (n.) under dead, adj.
(con. late 18C) Sucker’s Progress 42: Loaded dice were called ‘dispatches’ and ‘dispatchers’ then as now, and to prepare them thus for cheating was to ‘plumb the bones’ or ‘load the doctors’.at dispatcher, n.
(ref. to 18C) Sucker’s Progress 42: It is interesting to note that in England before the beginning of the nineteenth century dice were commonly known as ‘the bones’ and ‘the doctors,’ while casting them was ‘rolling the bones’.at doctors, n.
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