Asia Times: A scam at the heart of the US

[marmar]

A scam at the heart of the US
By Julian Delasantellis


Travelers visiting New York city from Americas's rural heartland in the 1980s might have been able to regale the folks back home with tales of encounters with knife-wielding drug addicts and/or disease-scourged prostitutes, but it's not like their predecessors who made the same trek back in the 1950s didn't have a tale to tell around the cracker barrel as well. They might have come back to the square dance and talked about playing and losing at the game of three-card monte.

Set up on rapidly movable folding card tables, in order to remain mobile against the disproving eyes of the constabulatory, three-card monte games were operated by New York sharpies who, when spying a rural rube from Racine, Wisconsin, or maybe Red Wash, Utah, would invite the visitor to play a simple card game. Three cards from a deck would be dealt face up-one a face card such as a King or Queen. Then the cards would be turned face down, the "dealer" would arrange and re-arrange them on the table, and, the contestant would be invited to chance a wager as to which card was the face card.

This was a lot harder than it seemed, especially with the dealer usually employing sleight of hand to hide the face card in his sleeve. No matter how hard he tried, no matter with how much concentration he watched the dealer's hands, the contest could never be won by its very nature; the player was destined to lose the card and his wager - rather like the chances of those facing foreclosure in the current mortgage and financial crisis of ever gaining relief from their hardship. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KB26Dj03.html