FARO
A Dead, Ghost Town Table GAME
It was the summer of 1898 and the Klondike Gold rush was in full, swing. An unnamed lucky miner paced the sternwheeler landing at the shore in front of Dawson City Yukon. This miner had don well and had no less than thirty two thousand dollars in his pocket. He knew when he got out that the world was going to be his oyster! But as he paced waiting for the steamer, he looked down at his pocket watch and said I'll go have a coffee at the casino. When he steeped back out on the street he was penniless, he pulled out of his pocket a little pistol and shot himself dead. The retort of the gun almost signaling the steamer's arrival. The game of chance he had played for two hours was Faro.

I wanted to know what ever happened to this game of Faro, and this is what I have learned...
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FARO was played in gambling houses all over the world for more than 300 years. It was, as it turned out the greatest sucker trap ever invented. Foolhardy gamblers who thought they could beat the game were relived of their gold. This game provided at least one hundred ways for the dealer to cheat.
The use of fixed dealing boxes, dealing fixed decks and other devices the Faro dealer new them all.

Placing a bet at the average Faro table was akin to betting on a wrestling match. The game was only played on the square at the most prestigious of Casinos and Gaming houses that could use the Game as a draw. While using the other Games like Roulette and other card games to make a profit for the house.

The reason for all this attraction to the game was that Faro was actually, much more in the players favor than other games, when played on the square and legitimate deck of cards. The game showed the least profit to the house of any game known. Just what the percentage has never been calculated exactly but experts have said they thought it was one or one and a half percent but still others were quite sure that just three quarter of one percent would be had for the house!

Faro reached it's height in popularity some one hundred and ten years ago in the Klondike Gold towns of Dawson and Atlin. So popular was the game at this time of excitement that even a town was name after it. You can still go to the town of Faro in the Yukon.


Because of the games intrinsic fairness to the player. It was a given that the honest Faro bank could not live.

Funny enough. No one knows where Faro came from or even who invented the game. The best evidence is that it was a French adaptation of the Italian and Venetian games of Hocca and Basetta, with some borrowings from an old German 14th. Century game called "Landsquenet". Because the backs of early French playing cards bore the likeness of a Pharo or Egyptian King. Also known as Pharaoh or Pharaon and under these names was played by French settlers in Mobile and New Orleans.

Thanks for your time...
John Mitchell
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