The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-10-20
Walter WillcIaeII On BrOddzeuy
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THINGS I'M GALD LEARNED
 ABOUT GAMBLING

THINGS pM GALD | LEARNED
 ABOUT GAMBLING
 wilson Mizner used to tell the craps-shoo and other sinners the one about bunch of card sharps and dice cheaters who were taken" by a small town business man They invited him to join their dice game, but he said: ''I have never played this before, would only slow you up." He was persuaded to play anyway and they allowed him to win $5,O0O in no time Suddenly he got up and quit .. Gentlemen" he said, pocket ing the beautiful pictures of Lin- coin, Washington, Jackson and Franklin, "If you experts could lose $5,0o0 in five minutes, the n Ia mere small town business man certainly can lose $10,00O in ten minutes, and so g'bye."
 But there are not many heroes like the one above around any more Card manipalators are Stil, living at the best hotels and riding the finest trains and ships, because Barnum Was Right and so@ was Texas Guinan .. .. The lad we itemed about recently, John Scarne is Americas top magician at cards We persuaded him to reveal some of the secrets of the sharpieS :.
 Read them and weep a little. and see if you can recognize yourself.
 Most professional magic and card trick expoSers around today are the laughing stock of the trade be- cause the tricks and devises they expose haven't been used by the ex- pert magicians or card and dice men for years. For instance, re- cent gambling expose showed that roulette wheels were fixed with a little kicker, and that the kicker batted the ball out of the. com rartment on which the betting was heavy. That system went cut with pet.icoats. Today the ball is con- trolled by air pressure tyou can't locate ozone as evidence) and can be blown in and out of any number desired.
 The old army game (three shells ard peal was invented by carnival grifters (cheats) and was originally played with thimbles. The oper- ator of such a game was called thimblerigger. You have no chance at all in this game because the pea is never under any shell. It's in the operators hand until you bet then it's under the wrong shell.
 Two well-known gamblers around town haven't paid night club tab in ages. Their particular racket is odds and evens, the odl toss-a- coin swindle. They trick the third man in the party to foot the bill by inducing him to play odd man. They are extremely capable of toss- ing head or tail at will. Through pr .-arranged signals, they both toss heads or tails simultaneously, and tke first time the third mans coin is odd--he pays . Another coin racket is wagering that you can cali a spinning coin that has landed flat on a table-with your back turned. By nicking the coin with a knife on either the head or tail si!e. it is possible to tell low the coin has fallen. If the ring is long and true. the nicked side is face up. If it is short and abrupt, the nicked l siie is face down.
 Transatlantic card hustlers tthose who play the boats) always execute a false crooked move before an authentic one. If the monkey (sucker) ignores the suspicious move, he is ready for the cleaners. If he suspects something, they promptly prove that they have done nothing cut of the way-and they're more careful from then on . But working the boats is passing from favor with the card sharps. They | can do better today joining neigh borhood bridge clubs and cheating | the women and lounge lizards.
 Chumps think that pair of loaded dice fall the same way all | fhe time. Actually. pair of hypoed | cubes may hit different combina- tions each time they're thrown The secret of success CD with them lies in their handling. Loaded dice used to contain fluid because they were opaque. Now. since they're made translucent, they are loaded | in the spots with platinum .. :. II