The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1893-05-05
A NEW PARTISAN GAME,
It Is a Combination OF Billiards
and Sdttlea
Gamblers Employ tho New Game. Which
LIS Called Cardinal" to Fleece the
PubIic-It Saves a Trip to
Monte Carlo.

1t is long way from Paris to Monte
Carlo, and the cost of travelling thither
is not conspicuous for cheapness; so,pos-
sibly, says the London Telegraph, this
may be one of the reasons for the sud-
den outbreak in Paris of a new gam
bling craze, of which the curious mani
festation is a game called cardinal"
At one of the most fashionable cafes
of the boulevards this game, which ap-
pears to be combination of billiards
and szittles, is played night after night;
and to this establishment all the pro-
fessional gamblers in the French capital
are said to be focking. Cardinal is
not very intricate method of gam bling.
A billiard table is provided, and at one
end of the green cloth are ranged in
rows thirty-one small ivory ''quilles,"
or skittles, the central one being red
and the remainder white. A red ball is
placed on ''spot," and the play is made
with one white ball, which is projected
by the cue from the cushion about half
way down the table. 1t has to carom
off the red ball, and, rolling across the
table, to knock over a certain number
of quil1es. If an even number are
knocked down the bank wins all the
money that has been -stalzed, but if an
uneven number of skittles are overset
the punters, or gallery" win, and the
bank has to cover their stakes. On the
other hand, if in the number of skittles
reversed there is included the red slzit
tie, or cardinal" the bank wins and
sweeps the board, whether the number
be odd or even. The billiard players
interest is to play so that the bank
should win, as the syndicate to which
he belongs receives a commission on
each successful coup" 1t must be un-
derstood that the public have nothing
whatever to do with the actual play.
That business is undertaken by con-
federacy of billiard sharps who call
themselves professors and, forming
themselves into syndicate, come to an
arrangement with the proprietors of
the cafe for the privilege of converting
a billiard room into public hell, and,
to judge from q sketch of a game of
cardinal published in an illustrated
contemporary, ladies as well as gentle
men are permitted to stake their money
against the bank.
THAT this obviously gambling game
is altogether unjust to that portion of
the public who are silly enough to risk
their louis or their five-franc pieces at
cardinal" is sufficiently plain, seeing
that the punter has only one chance
the odd one-against the bank; where
as the bank itself has another chance,
the red guile, or cardinal itself, and
an expert professor" might very easily
train himself to knock over tscardinal'
in at least three out of five ''coups."
1t is not, again, very probable that any
thing approaching long run upon odd
or even would take place, and the bank
may therefore rely, first, on the chance
OF the professor knocking down ''car-
dinal," and next on the folly of the
punters who, having won say twice on
odd, will very likely back their luck and
double their stakes in the anticipation
of odd again occurring. The bigger
their stakes the more perilous it will be,
of course, to them, seeing that there is
not only the risk of even turning up,
but the continuous danger of cardinal
being knocked down. There is, again,
no kind of guarantee to the public of
the professors" playing fairly.