The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1894-03-23
FIXING THE WHEEL.
HOW RED LEARY'S GANG WON $780,
600 AT ONE SITTING.

To beat gambling house by under
handed schemes is an almost impossible
thing. All the important gam bling es-
Establishments in this part of the country
employ men to look out for such attempts,
and the number of times when faro cards
have been fixed" cogged hazard dice
substituted, roulette wheels "corked' OF
any similar games played successfully by
gamblers against "the house" can be
counted on the fingers of one hand. The
gambler of today must depend on his luck
to come out ahead of the cards, the dice
or the wheel
One of the few schemes and perhaps the
most successful ever perpetrated on gam
bling house in this part of the country
was worked in Phil Days place at Long
Branch, known as Monte Carlo, Jr, by a
gang of crooks headed by Red Leary, since
killed on Sixth avenue by brick which a
companion of his tossed in the air, and
by big Frank Mccoy, the bank robber.
The game was roulette, and although the
affair occurred nearly 10 years ago no &C
count of it ever was made public, and
even the chief loser, the late Charles Fred
erick Woerrishoffer, well known banker
of this city, never knew of the crooked
work that lost him $1,000 within three
hours.
When Leary, Mccoy and three others,
one of whom is well known bunko man,
arrived at Long Branch one day that sum-
mer, report got abroad that they ere 60
ing to make an organized attempt at rob-
bling the big safe in Monte Carlo, Jr. Ev-
cry night five guards slept in the gam bling
house with loaded shotguns at their heads,
but they might have spared themselves
the trouble. The five crooks would come
over in the afternoon, lounge about the
house until evening, when they would
play, but not heavily, and generally lose.
They always played roulette There came
night, however, when they stopped los
ing and won enough to make up all their
losses ten times over. On the afternoon pre-
vious Phil DAILY had noticed Mccoy and
one of the others taking great interest
in the roulette wheel and said to Major
Crump, whose duty it was to look the ia
bles over and see that everything was
right before play began:
"Those fellows are up to something. l
think they're going to try to plug up
some of the numbers in the roulette wheel
and then play the adjoining mum bers.
Look out that the wheel isn't corked."
Crump examined the wheel with partic-
ular care that evening, but found nothing
wrong. Mccoy and Leary didn't come
around, but two of their pals did, and they
began playing heavily. About the same
time Mr. Woerrishoffer, who was a con-
slant customer, came in and sat down ON
the other side of the wheel opposite the
two crooks.
81 think I'm going to win tonight" he
said to Frank Snyder, who was croupier
on his side. "Give me 81, 900 worth of
chips. I'll play 6 and 49,"
He began by putting $50 on each of the
numbers and watched his coin disappear
without winning. His 81, 900 had gone
in little more than no time, and neither 6
nor 10 had turned up.
"They'll turn up pretty soon, l." he said
as he bought his second thousand dollars
count in chips. "Thirty-fve to one, when
hit it, will soon square me-"
But his second thousand went the way
of the first without either number turning
up. Still he persisted, insisting that the
luck would soon come his way hard.
Meanwhile the crooks on the other side of
the wheel were playing heavily on Nos. s
and IL, on the first IL, which pays 3 to l,
and on the middle column. which pays
the same, and they were winning on all
with remarkable persistency as steadily as
Woerrishoffer, at the other end was los
ing. After his fifth thousand had gone
and his numbers had not shown up once,
Banker Woerrishoffer said to Snyder:
"Well, Frank, there's no luck for me
tonight. I've lost So, 900 on and 10, and
that's enough for one evening. This isn't
their night on. I'll try 'em again tomor-
row."
1.-The luck is at the other end, " replied
Snyder "Those fellows on the other end
are hitting us hard"
The two crooks played on, and still they
won. Each played the limit every time on
the middle column and the first ~, and
$40 at every turn of the wheel on Nos. s
and II, and SO remarkable was their luck
that other smaller caliber players began
to follow them with ill results to the
bank. When finally Major Crump, who
was spinning the wheel, called the last
turn, the two men were about $4,000
apiece ahead. They and the rest of the
McCoy-Leary gang left Long Branch on
the following day. When the wheel stop
ped, Snyder leaned over to Crump and
whispered:
"Neither nor 10 has turned up once
tonight. There's something wrong with
the wheel"
Cant ben' returned Crump. "Ilooked
it over carefully before the game began.
I'll swear there ism cork in the wheel"
"Well, let's look it over" suggested
Snyder, and the two began to examine the
wheel. Their investigation failed to dis
cover any No. 6 or 10 on the wheel. They
tried againRnd found two No. SIS and two
IFS. Over.No. 6 a square of very fine It's
sue the exact counterpart of No. s, had
been set in, and in like manner II had
been substituted for 49, Besides doubling
the two numb ers, this put one extra chance
in the first 12 and two chances in the mid
die column. Crump turned to Snyder:
"Now l get onto why those fellows
played the same numbers right through"
he said. "They must have fixed the wheel
this afternoon. It's as pretty piece of
work as I've ever seen, but it'll never go
again here"
Daily himself was summoned to examine
the wheel He declared that not even the
best trained eye could have detected the
counterfeit and told his two employees to
say nothing about it lest it should hurt the
reputation of the bank. So we'll did they
keep the secret that when Woerrishoffer
died some time later he was still in igno-
rance of the reason that the wheel ran so
led, l. Nln, hot