While researching Wild West gamblers, the game of faro kept coming up. It seems that Westerners had a passion for the card game that was outlawed in France in the 17th-Century.

Could that be part of the attraction?

An outlawed game appealed to a land of outlaws and free spirits like these fellows…

• Scam artist Canada Bill Jones * I especially enjoy his name * loved the game so much that, when he was asked why he played at one game that was known to be rigged, he replied, “It’s the only game in town.”
• Con man Soapy Smith was a faro dealer. It was said that every faro table in Soapy’s Tivoli Club in Denver, Colorado, in 1889 was gaffed (made to cheat).
• Lawman Wyatt Earp dealt faro for a short time after arriving in Tombstone Arizona having acquired a controlling interest in a game out of the Oriental Saloon.
• Dentist and gambler Doc Holliday dealt faro in the Bird Cage Theater as an additional source of income while living in Tombstone.

But that’s not all. Even the Italian adventurer Casanova was known to be a great fan of faro. He mentions the game several times in his autobiography.

What more could faro offer?

Apparently, people enjoy faro’s fast action, easy-to-learn rules, and better odds than most games of chance…unless you are playing against scam artists, con men, lawmen, and dentists 🙂

Have you ever played faro?

I’d love to hear what you enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) about the game, or who you played against.