So I finished up school this week and after my head nearly imploding on my final on Wednesday, I decided I needed to spend some time reading something fun, so I picked up Ann Fabian's "Card Sharps and Bucket Shops: Gambling in the Nineteenth Century." The book is something that's been on my shelf for a few years, but that I've never gotten around to. Over all, I think it's a great read and worthwhile for people who are interested in the history of gambling in America. Fabian is a social and political historian, and wherever possible she's working from primary materials so a lot of the general history is very good. The book is written primarily for a general audience, and secondarily for an Academic audience, so for those of us interested in the underworld aspect of things there's a fair amount of reading between the lines that has to be done. That said, I think Fabian does a very good job of detailing the general social and political pressures that built up around the temperance movement which was, I think, more heavily devoted to stamping out gambling than it's generally thought of being by most folks. The stories here about how the various con jobs and crooked gambling rings worked are the best and most useful information to be found. Times may have changed, but psychology hasn't, and I learned quite a bit from the thinking that Fabian describes in passing as she recounts the ruses used by ropers and travelling con artists of the time to locate and target marks. You're not going to learn much about sleight of hand or cheating devices here, because the focus is primarily on Big Store style scams. The most revealing aspect of the book for me was the way Fabian detailed the parallel, intertwined nature of the development of gambling and stock and bond investing as America industrialized in the 19th century. I didn't know, for example, that at one point investing in stocks was looked at with the same sort of disdain and suspiciousness that poker and faro rooms got. Where things differentiated was where the big money got involved. You might be able to make thousands of dollars working the wire or running a rigged faro box, but the bucket shops running crooked investment schemes were making millions. As a result, stock investing made some cons extremely wealthy to the point that their wealth allowed them to acquire an aura of legitimacy. Over time, this led the whole business of stock market investing to appear legitimate, while "gambling" of the other kind remained the province of shadier underworld types. The political response was that one type of con artist was accommodated by the legal system, with elaborate and complex rules developing up to the present day to protect the con artists working their games, while at the same time gambling at various cards and dice games was slowly pushed west to the frontiers and then strangled off as a legal activity in the states. Overall, I think this was a fantastic book that I learned a lot from. You're not going to find some secret lost art of painting with pre-fda chemicals or the real work on dealing with a rigged faro box in here, but you will learn a lot about the mindset of the sucker and how people delude themselves into thinking that they can win at a game that is rigged against them. And that sort of psychology and history, if like me it's why you're interested in gambling, is pretty priceless. I've found little that's as rigorous or as skeptical as this book, and it's getting a place of honor on my bookshelf next to Jack Black's "You Can't Win" and the memoirs of Yellow Kid Weil.

Best to all and sundry,
J

Apparently the school you go to has taught you nothing about the concept of paragraphs.

Zing! I hope it was a helpful quick synopsis even though I didn't bother to hit the enter or tab keys. :- |

Well, no, it wasn't helpful, because you didn't bother to hit the enter or tab keys.

Perhaps you could try again.

What's the with the mentalist attitude?

So I finished up school this week and after my head nearly imploding on my final on Wednesday, I decided I needed to spend some time reading something fun, so I picked up Ann Fabian's "Card Sharps and Bucket Shops: Gambling in the Nineteenth Century." The book is something that's been on my shelf for a few years, but that I've never gotten around to. I think it's a great read and worthwhile for people who are interested in the history of gambling in America.

Fabian is a social and political historian, and wherever possible she's working from primary materials so a lot of the general history is very good. The book is written primarily for a general audience, and secondarily for an Academic audience, so for those of us interested in the underworld aspect of things there's a fair amount of reading between the lines that has to be done. That said, I think Fabian does a very good job of detailing the general social and political pressures that built up around the temperance movement which was, I think, more heavily devoted to stamping out gambling than it's generally thought of being by most folks. The stories here about how the various con jobs and crooked gambling rings worked are the best and most useful information to be found. Times may have changed, but psychology hasn't, and I learned quite a bit from the thinking that Fabian describes in passing as she recounts the ruses used by ropers and travelling con artists of the time to locate and target marks. You're not going to learn much about sleight of hand or cheating devices here, because the focus is primarily on Big Store style scams.

The most revealing aspect of the book for me was the way Fabian detailed the parallel, intertwined nature of the development of gambling and stock and bond investing as America industrialized in the 19th century. I didn't know, for example, that at one point investing in stocks was looked at with the same sort of disdain and suspiciousness that poker and faro rooms got. Where things differentiated was where the big money got involved. You might be able to make thousands of dollars working the wire or running a rigged faro box, but the bucket shops running crooked investment schemes were making millions. As a result, stock investing made some cons extremely wealthy to the point that their wealth allowed them to acquire an aura of legitimacy.

Over time, this led the whole business of stock market investing to appear legitimate, while "gambling" of the other kind remained the province of shadier underworld types. The political response was that one type of con artist was accommodated by the legal system, with elaborate and complex rules developing up to the present day to protect the con artists working their games, while at the same time gambling at various cards and dice games was slowly pushed west to the frontiers and then strangled off as a legal activity in the states.

Overall, I think this was a fantastic book that I learned a lot from. You're not going to find some secret lost art of painting with pre-fda chemicals or the real work on dealing with a rigged faro box in here, but you will learn a lot about the mindset of the sucker and how people delude themselves into thinking that they can win at a game that is rigged against them. And that sort of psychology and history, if like me it's why you're interested in gambling, is pretty priceless. I've found little that's as rigorous or as skeptical as this book, and it's getting a place of honor on my bookshelf next to Jack Black's "You Can't Win" and the memoirs of Yellow Kid Weil.

Happy now, school marm?

Thanks for the review, it sure does sound interesting. The paragraph sure helps, but Mr. stoneunhinged is surely in a bad mood today

Oh I think he's just giving me a hard time because I quit the magic Café after a dustup with some mentalists on the skeptic forum a couple years ago and left him high and dry to fight the good fight by himself.

HA! Yeah, I'm happy! Thanks a bunch. Nice review.