Evening star., 1922-12-17

to play successful hand of poker to
match the skill of any first or even
second rate man. And poker was then
notoriously a mans game. Naturally.
the card man despised such women
and felt uncomfortable in any opera
ton where they were employed.
But great changes have taken place
among gamblers, among their VIC
Tins and among the women who con-
sort with them. Moreover. there has
been a considerable mutation in the
games used.
Today's gamblers are different from
those of the earlier generations in
several particulars. They are less in
clined to rough work and they try to
assume an air of education and cul-
ture. whereas their fathers strove to
seem rustic and stupid. This change
was forced, of course, by a change in
the victims The old gambler played
for the rube; his successor works on
men Of position and sometimes of at
tainment The old crudities have dis
tricks are vastly more clever and
subtle. Finally, the stakes played for
today are from ten to thousand
times as great as in the old days. The
better gamblers are highly prosperous
and their money permits them to use
elaborate schemes and plans which
were impossible to the old player who
worked for small money.
The change in the victims has al
ready been noted in part, but an i'm
portant phase Of it needs special
mention. There has sprung up to
large prosperity in this country. with
in the last generation. a class Of busi-
ness men, made up OF several Levan-
tine races, among whom gambling is
an endemic fever. These persons play
whenever there is opportunity and for
very high stakes. They practice all
sorts OF tricks among themselves and
are what the professional gambler
calls half WISE" and by that token
especially susceptible to the sharper
who is really wise and able to entrap
them through their own venality.
x
THE next factor is the change in
i games. Whereas poker was for
cept for such frauds as monte and
keno and such house games as faro
bridge whist and craps now figure
very largely in the games on the
ocean boats and elsewhere. The two
dice game was adopted because its
paraphernalia is small and easily con-
cealed and because it gives fast and
winning and losing of laarge
amounts. Bridge on the -other hand.
was taken over by gamblers and their
victims because it was the social
game, the smart thing to play. One
must not forget that there is always
Il bit of social climbing and syco-
phancy involved in the motives of the
gamblers sucker.
All these matters have had some
thing to do with the gradual intro
duction of women into professional
gaming circles. 1t is patent that
great many women have played
bridge for the better part of two dec
ades and that some of them are
adopts. 1t is also fact that all man
ner of gambling has had a great
vogue among the women of the cities
and that card playing, which was
once practically under the ban among
women, has now come to be one OF
their special amusements. In certain
social strata the play is often Tor
higher stakes than the average man
likes to risk. And a great many
women have latterly taken up craps,
once confined to the alleys and empty
lots, the street urchin. the minor
gambling house and the gangster, and
still referred to as Ethiopian golf.
If bridge is a game which women go
in for strongly through its social
popularity, craps is a. game for wom-
en- because of other considerations 1t
is simple, it may be played anywhere
and its cheats are easy to learn. The
two dice of the crap game may be
crookedly handled in one Of two ways,
either by loading the dice or by trick
throwing. A comparatively simple
sleight- -of-hand feat by means Of
which the initiate can throw the win
ming pips four out Of every five at
tempts can be learned in short time,
and the woman who has the patience
to practice long and carefully with
the "bones" is thereafter able to take
almost any pair of straight dice and
hold an enormous advantage over
other players. This is. remember. a
mere physical trick, nowise to be
compared with the. psychological in
tricacies of good poker playing. A
woman who would never. by any far
chance, become even fair poker