Topic: Historical Street Gambling Game (Read 642 times)

@OP. As pointed out, dice itself is actually as old as it gets when talking about street gambling. Still very popular in parts of the world I've seen, still popular in modern variations in casinos, and its latest incarnation as Bitcoin dice

A coin toss is also the famous ending of an Asimov short story, where a war general reveals his legendary computing choice that led to a decisive inter-galactic war. Very interesting back notes and footnotes to the story of the die.


Actually, they do. Casino comps common in physical casinos. You come in, you get free drinks, free food, even free chips for a first timer. You're a winner from the beginning, so you're hooked.

Variations of hi-lo also let you keep on gambling, stacked against higher and higher odds, and gradually increasing edges. You're always invited to play more for double or nothing or similar, which invites the mind to think "I'm only losing winnings after all".

But the game we are talking about is a con game by definition. It's not even a game, but rather a fraudulent scheme engaging in which greedy street walkers lose all the money they have in their pockets, and sometimes even more because the gang members provide the befuddled player with loans which he/she also loses quickly.

If by "online cheating" you mean the sites from which you can never withdraw your money, then I agree with you, but there are provably fair online casinos which can't be even compared to the con game in question.

Yes exactly it was all about
Sometimes casino guy was alone
People were winning at beginning and he was screaming
Oh I Am  Mad i Am Giving Money Away
Than more people were coming and serious gambling begin
Very old skill game but much more  honest than online cheating

It's no longer being played because people know what's up and don't play it at all. Even the former con men are advising people not to play, even if they know that it's a scam. You just can't predict which card he'll drop first and how will he hold them (which one is the top and which one is the bottom, because they always grab 2 cards in one hand and 1 in the other). At the same time it started to be hard for the con men because if you observe him for a while you can see how he does it and which card gets slided. Then you simply ignore that card and he'll mechanically keep dropping it not knowing who is watching. It used to work great 50 years ago, now not so much.

It's funny that a very similar game was popular back in the 90s in my country. It was called "shell game", and as in the game you've described, a gambler was playing with 33% win chance.



The game was played in open-air areas near central station, in the center of the town or in a marketplace. The action was performed by a skinny small guy but the thugs were always around, and in fact a gambler was never allowed to win. The situation with a "smart guy" in your story who wins in the end was simply impossible, you were only allowed to lose. "But why people were playing the game then?", you may ask. Well, the gang was performing a great show with the "happy winners" screaming out of happiness, who of course were the members of the gang. Also the skinny guy who was shuffling shells was acting like he was drunk or just clumsy, and it looked like it's very easy to win the game making the the right guess. And, you know, some people can't stand it when others are winning and they are not. It wasn't rare when gamblers were fighting with each other for the next turn to play.

Its fun some countries share the same on street gambling games. In my country the fight betweek spiders are popular too. Some people do bet huge amount of money on spiders LOL. the same on dove race, they will go from places to places and they will release their doves, the first to get on their home cage will win the race, some races took about 2-3days before a winner is declared, imagine how far is the distance of the race

I haven't seen 3 card monte played in my street. But I have seen it countless times in Youtube and I must say that those con artist are really good. Quick hands plus some people colluding as well. You think you already know where the correct card is, but unfortunately, the sleight of hands happens so quick, in a blink of an eye that you didn't notice anything strange.

Its can probably compare to a '3 move chess' playing played here. You are given just 3 moves to 'check mate' the opponent and bets on the side. But this is just a scam as a 3 card monte.

Is this the three card monte? I Have been studying it for quite some time when I have been bored when not doing anything. I have seen it, and it's quite amusing how quickly the dealer has changed hands. It is a con game from what I have read on the history about it.

The scenario is that there are a lot of people that would be surrounding the dealer guy then waits for someone, who is a newbie, to join the commotion. After that, the dealer invites the newbie to participate and then lets him win, like in your story. Then after getting greedy, the sleight of hand will occur. Losing everything.

That's what I have thought of when reading the topic. Awesome.

Yeah, during my days, I will see people playing domino in our place as well. But its not that famous as compare to card games or mah-jong, which lasted till the wee hours in the morning and they play in secretly because they don't want the police to knock on the door and bust them up. Lol. Buy yes, domino games used to be famous here, but I don't know, I haven't seen in played again for many years now so probably it just died down. But during that time betting was also huge.

In my country there are several famous street gambling that I knew , the most popular is the domino, bunch of people will play secretly and most of the time the bet will getting higher and higher and sometime can lead to a fighting, the other most famous gambling is the sport side betting, usually one of the sport club will invite other sport club to compete and then both of the club will come to agreement how much will the bet and each of the member will participate in that bet and winner bring the money home

Well, probably yes, all depends on luck and of course, some of them require skills too.

But there are some like from old people in my birth place in province with their so called lucky charms where they get from odd animals in the wild with their latin prayers or whatever. Don't know if its really true but some what it works they use it mostly in cock fightings.

That's what I was aware of. Its more of a Spanish influence not just in the Philippines. There's a lot of gambling or sort of a past time for Filipinos back in the days. Yes, kara krus is one, or maybe street bingo, and then there's the 'fiesta' or 'perya', lots of games, balls being thrown into random colors and then you have to guess as to what colors it will landed, the 3 card monte and then 'beto-beto'.

Did you notice one thing common in every game related suggestion posted above? None of the games played in real life can be cheated are publicly verifiable without the digital systems. Life was better back then I guess.

Rules of the games have changed in terms of the house edge. Back then, there was literally no house edge. The losing bets were the only source of income for the provider.

Yeah, probably what I witnessed is that the tosser really master his craft, that's why he also wins and bettors thinks he is cheating or something. This is really a old school street gambling games in the Philippines. Maybe time has changed what coins are being used today, but still the rules of the game is still in the same.

Don't know really what it called as a whole in Philippines but my local called it that way.

I guess there's no way people can cheat in that way of gambling since everyone is watching around. And everyone has a chance to check the coin from its texture, how it looks and etc. And the tosser only needs to, of course, toss the coin until there's a result of 3 tails or 3 heads.

Though it takes time but people used to play it as long there's a smooth hard surface where the coin can land after a toss without any obstacle. So it can be played in street road as well.

Isn't it called "Kara Krus" or "cara y cruz"?

Haven't played that game, but I used to watch it being played when I was a boy in our place as well. Again it looks like another Spanish influence on Filipinos. As far as I can remember, it can be played anywhere, but there's always some heated debate as accusations of cheating (specially for losing bettors), but I don't know how can someone cheat unless he totally rigs the coins.

It looks like you were very smart kid
Nice to read all that stories from different area of the world
Question is who make first bet ever
God or devil
Will Eva convince Adam or not
sorry if hurt somebody feelings

That was mentioned in some middle schools' textbook that this cockfighting in the Philippines was totally a Spanish influenced.

I'm one of these kids way back using spiders to do a bet and even enjoined finding this fighter spiders before sunrise.

I don't know if this gambling type of coin is way back years ago but people here still use it the one they called hantak, having 3 coins, and people do a bet if they get 3 tails or 3 heads. And the one who tosses the 3 coins has always the heads, so if he tossed and get 3 heads then he wins, 3 tails he loss.

I think my country has adopted a lot of gambling games from abroad. I know about gambling games that are often played by young people and maybe or I think they created their own games. namely in 2000-2010 when the PS 2 console game was very popular at the time, and winning eleven was the gambling table. play in cup mode (konami cup), then place player1 in the bye position, then see the match that has happened before. and the player who chooses the country with the highest winning score in the previous match wins victory. the game was so popular in early 2000, and all young people called it a "bomber".

Never heard of goat fighting though, but yeah, spider derby was common on my place back then. Although I still see kids trying to capture spiders specially during summertime, but I'm not sure if money is involved as well. I'm familiar with head and tails, (still played in corner of my street). And then there's sort of baccarat or what we call "lucky nine", but its not being played with regular cards but with what we call "text" or "teks", or sort of like a pokemon card back then. Those card has numbers on top, so we used that numbers instead just like a regular cards. I remember like I'm 10 years old and having older people betting. LOL. I got them because I rigged the card.  . And then when I have my winnings already, I told them last 2 deals because its time to get home (6 pm).

Okay that was so simple but yet a good one. The greedy loses the game.
It is hard to control it if we are talking about gambling.
But that is history and they do not have the right equipments to make it more inviting to play.
Now we have casinos.

One thing I remember though that is still on going.
Dices. They are a relic already and yet still used in Vegas and now online dicing too.

I have been watching Robin Hood movie yesterday with Russel Crowe
At the beginning Russel who is Robin is playing 3 cups and ball gambling
Robin Hood story is from 11 century but i think it was Rome Imperium  game as England was part of Rome
Long way from ancient Rome to street gambling on middle east country 3 cards gambling from 20 century

I have same experiences with these kind of stuff on where you do bet on a certain spider on whose gonna win.In my childhood i did enjoy and i can say that this is way more fair than on current gambling/casino games nowadays, there are lots of them actually and its being mentioned above about rats and doves which way more entertaining to watch and make some bets since outcomes cant really be rigged
or manipulated and which all depends on the certain capacity of the thing you have bet out.

I realized that everything that we do is a gamble, And particularly your life is a real gamble, And in my opinion every part of it we can bet and turn it into a gamble, It is pretty peculiar that we can debate everything and anything that we can come across can turn into something we can bet on, For example, the cars in the streets we will not bet on the color of a vehicle that you will first see to cross your path, Just like these people will surely come up with a good way and a good thing to bet on.

This is the easiest betting game, can be done anywhere, anytime. I do this with my friends, we do wherever we want. This game is to guess the vehicle number plate, we take one of the last numbers whether odd or even. Are we sitting on the side of the road waiting for every vehicle that passes and watching the vehicle's license plate, odd or even? yes this looks crazy. In this game there are no experts or cheaters, it's just about luck.

I once saw scammers who were cheating people on the game of 3 cups and it was a similar strategy to the card game story. The difference was that they had shills in the crowd who were playing and winning, to make people think that it's easy. Later on when somebody came to play the shills were supposed to turn his attention, distract him, sometimes even steal from him. If the cheated person got wind of the scam they would make a lot of noise and confusion in the crowd for the group to get away.

I do not agree with this, you either have a method to beat the casino or you do not, and as is the case with most gamblers they do not have a way to beat the house so whatever profits you are making in a game that has a negative expectation for you are profits that you will eventually give to the casino if you keep playing, now some may say that the only thing you need to do is to stop playing before that happens, but since we are talking about random games, when do you know that is going to happen?

And even more importantly many see the wins they made in a session of gambling but the truth is that gambling is nothing but a long single session, so the next time you gamble even if it is months after you made profits the session continues. So the only way to make profits in a negative expectation game is to get lucky at first and then never play again in your life.

Like I have said that Antonio Pigafetta had already witnessed bets being placed on cockfights when his ship arrived in 1521 and by that time he traveled with Ferdinand Magellan he in the Philippines so cockfights are not the influence of Spaniards but I think it was introduced by the Chinese in the late sixteenth century when many local Chinese would go to the Philippines for business and profit, engaging in different trades and activities, Well I have learn it in history class back then.


Well, I have heard it from a documentary were convicts and prisoners had freedom inside the vicinity of the prison where they can often unsought illegal things inside the jail that includes illegal drugs paraphernalia, money, and even cocks used in cockfights for illegal gamblings inside, Well, that was back then when Duterte is not the president.

How about pigeon racing though? When I was growing up I used to watch and join the street crowd if ever there's a pigeon race and there will be huge bet. Those owners will make a bet and other people can join in as well. And then someone will take the pigeon on a designated location, (they usually ride a train) and let the pigeon fly and the first one to make it to home is the winner. But I haven't seen this practice or game for a while now so I'm not sure if this sort of game has died down.

It is funny since he uses the psychology of gambling here. If I am not mistaken, in my early years, this is how people that go to our place or town get money out of them.

At first they are letting these gamblers, my townspeople, to win. In the psychology of gambling, the happier or the more the gamblers are enjoying the game, they will be having a long time gambling and that also means a good loss for them. Back in the days, gambling is like a magic trick; you are pushing them into your show and tricking them into something not for them to be amazed but for you to earn money.

Unfortunately, I don't know any old favorite gambling game because basically, I am not a gambler, I gamble when I know crypto, and I don't spend too long to play the game. Maybe the game is card and dice, and I think it was so popular here and I see that in some place, people still played even in the secret place. But I think there is another gambling game that still popular until now in here, and maybe I will ask my friends who know about the game.

Spider fighting is very popular here our country especially when it comes season time of spider most likely in the summer time. I know how to play this because this is my favorite gambling habit when i was a kid and I also selling this in school.
There are a lot of street games that now slowly gone but they are very popular before just like tossing three old coins when the coins hit on the ground you have to win if coins appear same faces at least two coins.

In India their are lot of street games played some officially and some unofficially, they are goat fighting, cock fighting, this are games which are played in street gambling unofficially. Kite flying competition, this game was played officially but i think today it is not so popular.

First to hear about spiders

cock fighting very popular in Latin America countries at least in Mexico

i remember time long time ago when communism  system was still here and  was not machines
than Lotto numbers were drawing by person not machine but i am doubt was it fair

I have been reading interview with one polish mathematician who broke German Enigma   encryption before WW2 and during WW2
He told that it will take him about 3 weeks of work to break Lotto code and win anytime he wants to

It's hard to figure out from the description what game are you referring to but I hope it's this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_game

Even today especially in the third world countries street gambling games are quite common. I've played them myself and it's way better than online gambling in terms of probability fair and stuff. Like I recently saw a video where a rat is allowed to run randomly into a number of holes with bets on them. Now this can't be made rigged by teaching a rat to run only in the selective holes.

Like the documentary that I have seen,the past stories that I got from ancient game predecessors used a coin and are still being used by the "head tail".Well it looks easy there are only two parts of head or tail but an intelligent person has the trick of throwing coins,he finally brings victory and the day after he opens the trick to other gamblers.Throwing is now done differently to show fairness.

I'm not really sure though, I thought that cock fighting in the Philippines was a Spanish influence. So its really hard to see Philppines into cock fighting prior to Magellan's arrival, but I might be wrong.


Its still being played and I even heard that in prison cells, this sort of gambling was a favourite past time amongst those convicted.

Well, I am from the Philippines and I had read that in the time of Magellan in his voyage here in the Philippines, And in the accounts noted by Antonio Pigaffeta that he had already witnessed bets being placed on cockfights when his ship arrived in Palawan in 1521, And right now it is pretty common here and many Filipinos was being professionally inclined with this kind of platform gambling and I really think it is not really easy because you will need to take care of the cocks you will need to place on the pit, And it is pretty common here to breed cocks for cockfights and it is a popular past time in the Philippines.

And another historical gambling here is spider derby where often I see people would bring boxes of matchsticks or common boxes that would encase their spiders and this kind of gambling they will place the spiders each on the edge of the sticks then forced them to fight one another. Well, this is the common gambling game I experience in my country.

In my country the dice game leads back thousands of years. However this dice was not similar to the dice we play, it was a quite simple game and played all around the world in that time. You select either the odd number or the even number and bet on it.

There was no house edge and people did not had to have any upper edge over other people. You either select number one, three or five and the other dude will select two, four and six. It means when the dice is rolled whichever comes that dude wins.

This was quite common in roman empire as well and played in places called "aleatorium" which derives from "alea" which is dice.

There has been other ways people gambled at the times mostly notable gladiators and who will win but that "wager" was not like casino gambling, it was basically betting against each other.

I am not that fond of reading books or doing research about gambling history, so I guess I have nothing to share from my country. But there is one game I know which is not played by new generations and that game is called "sunka". I don't know if it is used as a gambling game previously but for me it's a good duel mind and betting can be done while playing this game.

That's why we have "provable fair" casinos these days. There is no way to exploit the human behavior with "Provable fair" method. Hence why you guys see all these deposit promotions etc. That's their new way to "exploit/lure" people in. I mean if you look at the moral of the story it was that the dude stopped betting at the right moment instead of letting his emotions take over and if you ask me its still valid today and will always be. Knowing when to stop pushing your luck is the only difference between a "good" gambler and a "bad" one.

I don't know any stories like that but yours reminded me of a question I was wondering about: why aren't casinos making the bets in favor of the player at first? They could then turn on this house edge thing and probability, but I am pretty sure that they would profit from it more than they'd lose. Would it be considered as cheating? I mean, if the casino is at first helping one to win and then just playing fair, I don't think anyone could accuse it. And even if people knew about that, they'd probably not be able to resist the temptation to keep playing.

I want to share with you story about street gambling game from before WW2 war
It was a way to make money for smart guys from uptown area
Smart guys without incomes stream
Game was played on bazaar or straight on the street
It was very simple game.Three cards two of them were black and one was red red was wining one black were losing
Guy was presenting cards to gambler than he was mixing cards gambler was choosing one card trying to find red one

At first look it was very easy to find red one
And it was like that because casino  guy was allowing gambler to find red one
But he  knew gambling psychology and  he knew that gambler after first easy win will like to win more
So gambler was wining first attempt second or even third and was betting  bigger and bigger money
At some stage casino guy was mixing cards that way that it was very hard to find red card and gambler was losing
Finally smart guy was winner and gambler lost all money what he had in his pocket together with watch

But sometimes some smart guys was coming to play.He knew very well how it works
So he was showing himself like a newbie and when game entered  in final stage he was
the winner over casino guy


Do you know any historical popular game from your country your maybe forgotten already
maybe somebody from old generation told you about some old gambling game

Russian roulette was popular but there are not living gambler who can share story about that game

Or maybe you know some real unknown stories how gambler was able to win against cheating casino etc