Cheating Terms in Cards and Dice

FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS, I have been assembling the data base for a proposed Dictionary of Gaming and Gambling. number of entries stands today at about twenty thousand items; of these, nearly ten percent are terms for and about cheating. This article classifies and defines terms for cheating only at cards or dice. distribution of terms in various categories sheds light on particular areas in gambling where cheating occurs most frequently. Whether the terms should be regarded as jargon or is difficult to say. Since some are used only by professionals within the gambling fraternity while others are known to the general public, we have a lexicon that would seem to shade from into jargon. Historically, of course, terms used as signals among confederates while fleecing suckers are shunned by the users when the words become too well known to maintain the privacy of communication. language of gamblers, whether or jargon, differs from the practiced by criminals, such as the pickpockets described in Maurer's Whiz Mob (1955). Maurer says, The thief lives, thinks, and works in terms of the argot (53). That is to say, the can be employed in dayto-day situations which are not immediately relative to the sting. But the language will be used only in the presence of other professionals and for the discussion of the business of theft and its immediately related activities. However, since the subculture of the pickpocket is alien to the dominant culture, the pickpocket's discussions are generally restricted to others in the profession. This is not strange since the pickpocket has little respect for members of the dominant culture, seeing such folk as merely the prey for convenient plucking. Pickpockets, like many denizens of criminal subcultures, live in a closed social system and talk mainly to each other. Says Maurer, All in all, the pickpocket's technical is highly specialized not only because it reflects work which is highly specialized, but also because that work lies outside the law. grows out of the techniques and attitudes of the professional toward the victim, toward the law, toward other professionals, toward others who live by a racket, and toward legitimate society(1955, 54). vocabulary overlaps other technical argots. of dice and card cheats differs in two respects. First, the dice or card cheat lives and works in the presence of the suckers. Such regular

Cheating · Dice · Statistics · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Gambling Behavior and Treatments · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Psychology

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