History of Faro

The following includes excerpts from the History section of Mark Howard's presently unavailable website on faro with permission from Mark Howard. Some editing has been done.

Origins

Many sources say the game of faro originated in France in the early 18th Century (about 1713), as a revised form of the popular British pub game, basset, which taces it roots back to the game of landsquenet, played by Teutonic foot soldiers in the 1400's. Basset was outlawed in France by King Louis the XIV in 1691 and faro developed as an alternative that was also popular for a short time in Great Britain. Most sources say an early version of the traditional game of faro was first introduced in the Americas around 1717 in what was to become New Orleans, Louisiana, by Scottish expatriate John Law (1671-1729). After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Law's game of faro quickly spread up the Mississippi on riverboats where it became a favorite among professional gamblers (which were commonly called "sharps") and players alike.

What's in a Name?

It is said the name of the game was derived or corrupted from the Egyptian Pharaoh pictured

on what is now the King of Hearts in the 16th and 17th century French card decks, which were imported to England at the time, although this may or may not be true. We have yet to find any concrete evidence of this as it seems there are none of these antique "Pharaoh" face cards in existence. Some have searched and found a variety of playing cards from that period (the 1700's and earlier) and have not found any such "Pharaoh" face cards cataloged anywhere. If you know of any, please advise. The term “buck(ing) the tiger” is said to have come from early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal tiger. There have also been references made to a Royal Bengal Tiger painted on the outside of travelling faro cases used in the Civil War Era. Again, we have yet to find any antique cards or cases with "tiger" patterns on them. Regardless, since the mid-1800's, the Bengal tiger

Faro is a fast-paced "banking" game where any number of players (which were then called "punters") play against the dealer or the house, referred to as the "bank". In contrast, brag and poker are "round" games, where the players compete against each other using colored "poker chips" of specified denominations (values) that are "anted up" into a common "kitty" and later cashed in.

There's one in every crowd

As you will soon learn if you do not know already, when played with even a minimum of strategy, the traditional game of faro does not provide any significant edge to the house. In fact, the player's odds are almost as good as the Dealer's (house) odds. As a result, card cheating became commonplace. As the popularity of faro spread, so did the cheating. Sleight of hand, trick decks and other forms of modified equipment were employed to give the house or bank a distinct advantage. A brass dealing box was invented by a Virginia gambler named Robert Bailey in 1822 to address this problem. But, since Bailey's original box design concealed most of the deck, it was not widely accepted and was barred from use in many gambling houses.

In 1825, a new box design was introduced and patented by an Ohio watchmaker named Joseph Graves. The new design (pictured left) was the spring-fed, open-top, dealing box that held a face up deck, exposed on one side. Cards were extracted by sliding a finger across the window, pushing the top card out a narrow slot and the dealer's right side. Grave's new dealing box gained widespread acceptance and became what has since been considered the standard faro dealing box design. Ironically, the dealing box makers of the time found they could significantly increase their profits by selling converted or "gaffed" dealing boxes for the purposes of cheating at faro. In the 1870's, a standard German silver faro dealing box weighing about 4 pounds retailed for $35. A cheating box by the same maker that looked exactly the same would commonly retail for as much as $200! Cheating became so prevalent in the United States that ... Robert Foster, an early Hoyle Editor once wrote, "..to justify this [initial] expenditure [of opening a faro bank], he [the dealer or financial backer] must have some permanent advantage." By no means were the dealers the only ones cheating at faro! Carefully practiced distraction techniques and sleight of hand by dishonest players as well as professionally manufactured and home-made devices such as the "horsehair copper" or "silk (thread) copper" which was a simple tool, used with a mild diversion, to discreetly pull the copper marker from a bet if that card was not pulled on the losing draw, making it available to win as an "un-coppered" bet with the winning draw. Most proven cheating resulted in gunplay or a brawl, both of which often gave better odds to the player, unless he was in a "brace house" or "skinning den" (both are terms used for a game set up where most of the people in the room were colluding together to cheat an unsuspecting player).

For a more detailed account of the timeline of Faro development please click on this line!

The Demise of Faro

As time went on, as explained above, professional faro dealers found they had to cheat to maintain any real "edge" for the house and remain profitable. This became more dangerous as anti-gambling sentiment gained momentum in settled communities and vigilantism gained popularity on the frontier. After the turn of the century, a variety of other games with much better odds for the house (but more enticing payouts for the players, such as craps and roulette) quickly surpassed faro in availability and popularity. In 1900, there were nearly 1000 registered gaming establishments offering Faro in the Arizona Territory, but in 1907, Faro was completely outlawed in Arizona. By the 1930's, gambling been pretty much outlawed across the nation and the only legal faro games were in the State of Nevada. As it turns out, Faro did not have enough of a profit margin to be offered in underground gambling venues either and by the 1950's, there were only five active faro banks known to have been in existence in all of Nevada. The renowned faro bank at the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas closed in 1955, the Union Plaza in Ely closed its faro bank in 1975 and last faro bank disappeared from the Ramada in Reno in 1985. Over time, faro came to be considered old-fashioned and faded into history, making way for slot machines and other gambling games that could "earn" more for the house. One of the greatest injustices to the game of faro

was the fact that the books, western films and serials of the 1940's through the spaghetti westerns and popular western TV shows of the 1970's, all disregarded faro in favor of poker. Because audiences (and the writers & directors themselves) were completely unfamiliar with the game of faro, while in contrast, poker was extremely popular and well understood at the time, authors and directors consistently portrayed cowboys playing poker in their books, films and shows because they knew their audience could identify with the game. As a result, several generations have been mislead into believing poker was commonly played throughout the entire 19th century. It was not until John Wayne's last movie, The Shootist, in 1976 that western film makers seriously attempted to "get it right" by portraying faro banks in their movies. But, to add insult to injury, even many of those well intended filmmakers have shown faro being played incorrectly or have added unnecessary derogatory references, inaccurate statements and disparaging comments about the game that have lead to a widespread misunderstanding of the game and those that played it.

The Resuscitation of Faro

Today faro is mostly played by Living Historians who portray the 19th century. Few and far between are the Dealers of Faro who invest the time and money into doing it right. Here are a few that I have found recently...

Pico Pistolero - I met Pico at Calico Ghost Town in 2013. Nice guy. Gave him a link on my new website.

Wyatt, Faro & Co  - Don't know much about them. Worth a look at least.

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A few additional on-line articles on the history of Faro:

"Faro: The Frontier Favorite" January 2003 article by Mark Pilarski

"Former Dealer hopes for return of faro" October 2000 article by Ed Vogel in the Las Vegas Review Journal.

"Faro or Bucking the Tiger" Updated 2012 by Kathy Weiser for Legends of America

"Wyatt, Faro & Co" Copyright 2011

~ If you know of any others, please let me know.