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Faro is one of the oldest gambling games played with cards. References to the game are found in France during the reign of Louis XIV (late 1600s early 1700s). It was a favourite of highborn gamblers throughout Europe well into the 19th century. Faro was introduced to the United States in the mid 1800s. This video tutorial will teach you how to play Faro. This video will start by teaching you the general concepts of Faro, and is followed by the more detaile. Thanks to Thierry Depaulis for information on the history of this game. This casino gambling game originated in France in the late 17th century, where it was known as Pharaon (first recorded 1688), and became extremely fashionable in Europe in the 18th century.

Introduction

Faro, a simple game of luck using a single deck of cards, is said to have originated in France in the 17th century. It spread to England and then the United States via New Orleans. The game was likely the most popular game of chance in 19th century America, but its popularity gradually faded through the 20th century. It is believed the last casino to offer the game was the Reno Ramada in the 1980s. Personally, I've seen faro tables in museums and old paintings several times.

Rules

1. After shuffling, the top card in the deck, known as the 'Soda,' is exposed.
2. Following are the bets available that I am aware of.
   • Flat: Player may bet on any of the 13 ranks in the deck.
   • Split: Like a Flat bet, but on two ranks.
   • High Card: Player may bet whether the Winning or Losing card will be higher.
   • Odd/Even: Player may bet whether the Winning card is odd or even.
   • Turn: Betting on the order of the last three cards in the deck.
3. After wagers are placed, the dealer deals a card, known as the 'Losing Card.'
4. The following card is known as the 'Winning Card.'
5. Wagers are resolved, according to the specific rules for each bet (described below).
6. The dealer marks off on an abacus-like device the cards that were played.
7. Play continues from the deck until there is only one card, known as the 'Hock,' remaining.

Following is a list of the specific bets, including the rules and odds.

Flat Bets

There are 13 Flat bets (sometimes known as 'Denomination bets') available, one for each rank. Here are the specific rules:

1. If the Winning card and Losing card are different in rank, then bets on the rank of the Winning card will win and bets on the rank of the Losing card will lose. Bets on all other ranks will push.
2. If the Winning card and Losing card are equal in rank, then bets on that rank will lose half.
3. The player has the option to reverse the Winning and Losing cards by putting a penny on his wager. This action is known as a “copper.

The following table shows all the possible outcomes on the Flat bets, assuming a full 52-card deck.

Flat Bets

The lower image--rightell reflects a house edge of 0.23%. If we ignore ties, then the expected loss per bet resolved is 1.52%.

In the event the player bets on a rank when there is only one of that card left in the deck, it is known as a 'Case' bet. Absent any other rule changes, there would be zero house advantage, because it would be impossible to lose half, which is where the house gets its edge. In the case of Case bets, the dealer charges a 5% commission on wins.

The odds of the Case bet depend on how many cards are left in the deck. The more cards left, the lower the house advantage. The following table shows the probability of a win, push, and loss, as well as the expected return, according to the number of remaining cards. The image--rightolumn for the expected return shows the house edge ranges from 0.10% with 49 cards left to 1.67% with 3 cards left.

Case Bet

Split Bets

I discovered these bets from the Wichita Faro demo. It works like a Flat bet, except the player bets on two ranks, for example King and Queen. Here are the possible events, in this example, and what happens:

• Winning card is King or Queen and Losing card is anything else = Win even money.
• Losing card is King or Queen and Winning card is anything else = Lose all.
• Both cards kings or both cards queens = Lose half.
• Neither card king or queen = Push.
• One card king and one card queen = Push.

The player may also copper Split bets. The following table shows the odds of Split bets. The lower image--rightell shows a house edge of 0.45%. The house edge per bet resolved is 1.65%.

Split Bets

High Card

For purposes of the High Card bets, an ace counts as one point, 2 to 10 according to pip value, a jack is 11, queen 12, and king 13 points. The player may bet whether the Winning or Losing card will be higher. Here are the rules for bets that the Winning card is higher.

• Winning card is higher than Losing card = win even money.
• Winning card is lower than Losing card = lose all.
• Winning and Losing cards the same rank = lose half.

The following table shows all the possible outcomes that the Winning card will be higher. The lower image--rightell shows a house edge of 2.94%.

Winning Card Higher Bet

Bets on the Losing card are the opposite. In other words, it wins if the Losing card is higher.

Odd Bet

For purposes of the Odd bet, an ace counts as one point, 2 to 10 according to pip value, a jack is 11, queen 12, and king 13 points. Following are the possible outcomes of the Odd bet.

• Winning card odd and Losing card even = win even money.
• Winning card even and Losing card odd = lose all.
• Winning and Losing cards the same rank = lose half.
• Both cards odd or both even, but of different ranks = push.

The following table shows all the possible outcomes of the Odd bet, for the non-counter.

Odd bet

The lower image--rightell reflects a house edge of 2.94%. If we ignore ties, then the expected loss per bet resolved is 5.20%.

Even Bet

The Even bet is the opposite of the Odd bet. In other words, it wins if the Winning card is even and the Losing card is odd. The odds are exactly the same as the Odd bet.

Turn

When there are only three cards left, of three different ranks, then the player may bet on the order of them.

There are six possible permutations of three cards, so the odds of winning are one in six. Fair odds would be 5 to 1, but the actual odds pay 4 to 1. The following table shows all the odds of the Turn bet. The bottom image--rightell shows a house edge of 16.7%.

Turn bet

In the Wichita Faro game, the Turn bet pays 2 to 1 if there is a pair remaining in the last three cards. This would be fair odds, with no house advantage.

Strategy

My advice for Faro is to make only two types of bets: (1) Flat bets on ranks when exactly two cards are left in the deck of a given rank and (2) Case bets. The reason for the Flat bets is the low probability of losing half, where the house gets its edge. However, with just one card left, the rules revert to paying a 5% commission, which may or may not be better, according to the number of cards left in the deck.

Let's call this the 'Wizard's Faro Strategy.' According to this strategy, the odds are better on the Flat bets with 23 or more cards left in the deck. With exactly 21 left, the odds are equal. With 19 or less, the odds are better on the Case bets.

Expected Return of Wizard's Faro Strategy

Acknowledgement

The Doctrine of Chances by Stuart N. Ethier was enormously helpful to me in the creation of this page. Ethier devotes the 18th chapter (23 pages) entirely to Faro.

Outside Links

• Wikipedia page on Faro.
• Wichita Faro. Free demo.

Faro (/ˈfɛəroʊ/FAIR-oh), Pharaoh, Pharao, or Farobank is a late 17th-century French gambling card game. It is descended from Basset, and belongs to the Lansquenet and Monte Bank family of games due to the use of a banker and several players. Winning or losing occurs when cards turned up by the banker match those already exposed.

It is not a direct relative of poker, but Faro was often just as popular due to its fast action, easy-to-learn rules, and better odds^[1] than most games of chance. The game of Faro is played with only one deck of cards and admits any number of players.

Popular in North America during the 1800s,^[2] Faro was eventually overtaken by poker as the preferred card game of gamblers in the early 1900s.^[3]

Variants include German Faro, Jewish Faro, and Ladies' Faro.

History[edit]

The earliest references to a card game named Pharaon (French for 'Pharaoh') are found in Southwestern France during the reign of Louis XIV. Basset was outlawed in 1691, and Pharaoh emerged several years later as a derivative of Basset, before it too was outlawed.^[4]

Despite the French ban, Pharaoh and Basset continued to be widely played in England during the 18th century, where it was known as Pharo, an English alternate spelling of Pharaoh.^[5] The game was easy to learn, quick, and when played honestly, the odds for a player were considered by some to be the best of all gambling games, as Gilly Williams records in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752.^[6]

With its name shortened to Faro, it spread to the United States in the 19th century to become the most widespread and popularly favored gambling game. It was played in almost every gambling hall in the Old West from 1825 to 1915.^[7] Faro could be played in over 150 places in Washington, D.C. alone during the Civil War.^[8] An 1882 study considered faro to be the most popular form of gambling, surpassing all others forms combined in terms of money wagered each year.^[4]

Faro Card Game Free

It was also widespread in the German states during the 19th century, where it was known as Pharao or Pharo. A simplified version played with 32 German-suited cards was known as Deutsches Pharao ('German Pharo') or Süßmilch. It is recorded in card game compendia from at least 1810 to 1975.

In the US, Faro was also called 'bucking the tiger' or 'twisting the tiger's tail', a reference to early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal tiger. By the mid 19th century, the tiger was so commonly associated with the game that gambling districts where faro was popular became known as 'tiger town', or in the case of smaller venues, 'tiger alley'.^[9] Some gambling houses would simply hang a picture of a tiger in their windows to advertise that a game could be played there.

Faro's detractors regarded it as a dangerous scam that destroyed families and reduced men to poverty because of rampant rigging of the dealing box. Crooked faro equipment was so popular that many sporting-house companies began to supply gaffed dealing boxes specially designed so that the bankers could cheat their players. (See section of cheating by dealers below.) Cheating was so prevalent that editions of Hoyle’s Rules of Games began their faro section by warning readers that not a single honest faro bank could be found in the United States. Criminal prosecutions of faro were involved in the Supreme Court cases of United States v. Simms, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803),^[10] and Ex parte Milburn, 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 704 (1835).^{[citation needed]}

Although the game became scarce after World War II, it continued to be played at a few Las Vegas and Reno casinos through 1985.^[11]

Etymology[edit]

Historians have suggested that the name Pharaon comes from Louis XIV's royal gamblers, who chose the name from the motif that commonly adorned one of the French-made court cards.^[5]

Rules[edit]

Description[edit]

A game of faro was often called a 'faro bank'. It was played with an entire deck of playing cards. One person was designated the 'banker' and an indeterminate number of players, known as 'punters', could be admitted. Chips (called 'checks') were purchased by the punter from the banker (or house) from which the game originated. Bet values and limits were set by the house. Usual check values were 50 cents to $10 each.

The faro table was typically oval,^[12] covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one suit of cards (traditionally spades) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting 'layout'. Each player laid his stake on one of the 13 cards on the layout. Players could place multiple bets and could bet on multiple cards simultaneously by placing their bet between cards or on specific card edges. A player could reverse the intent of his bet by placing a hexagonal (6-sided) token called a 'copper' on it. Some histories said a penny was sometimes used in place of a copper. This was known as 'coppering' the bet, and reversed the meaning of the win/loss piles for that particular bet. Players also had the choice of betting on the 'high card' bar located at the top of the layout.

Procedure[edit]

• A deck of cards was shuffled and placed inside a 'dealing box', a mechanical device also known as a 'shoe', which was used to prevent manipulations of the draw by the banker and intended to assure players of a fair game.
• The first card in the dealing box was called the 'soda' and was 'burned off', leaving 51 cards in play. The dealer then drew two cards: the first was called the 'banker's card' and was placed on the right side of the dealing box. The next card after the banker's card was called the carte anglaise (English card) or simply the 'player's card', and it was placed on the left of the shoe.^[8]
• The banker's card was the bettor's 'losing card'; regardless of its suit, all bets placed on the layout's card that had the same denomination as the banker's card were lost by the players and won by the bank. The player's card was the 'winning card'. All bets placed on the card that had that denomination were returned to the players with a 1 to 1 (even money) payout by the bank (e.g., a dollar bet won a dollar). A 'high card' bet won if the player’s card had a higher value than the banker’s card.^[9]
• The dealer settled all bets after each two cards drawn. This allowed players to bet before drawing the next two cards. Bets that neither won nor lost remained on the table, and could be picked up or changed by the player prior to the next draw.
• When only three cards remained in the dealing box, the dealer would 'call the turn', which was a special type of bet that occurred at the end of each round. The object now was to predict the exact order that the three remaining cards, Bankers, Players, and the final card called the Hock, would be drawn.^[8] The player's odds here were 5 to 1, while a successful bet paid off at 4 to 1 (or 1 to 1 if there were a pair among the three, known as a 'cat-hop'). This provided one of the dealer's few advantages in faro. If it happened that the three remaining cards were all the same, there would be no final bet, as the outcome was not in question.

Certain advantages were reserved to the banker: if he drew a doublet, that is, two equal cards, he won half of the stakes upon the card which equaled the doublet. In a fair game, this provided the only 'house edge'. If the banker drew the last card of the pack, he was exempt from doubling the stakes deposited on that card.^[13] These and the advantage from the odds on the turn bet provided a slight financial advantage to the dealer or house. To give themselves more of an advantage, and to counter the losses from players cheating, the dealers would also often cheat as well.^[4]

A device, called a 'casekeep' was employed to assist the players and prevent dealer cheating by counting cards. The casekeep resembled an abacus, with one spindle for each card denomination, with four counters on each spindle. As a card was played, either winning or losing, one of four counters would be moved to indicate that a card of that denomination had been played. This allowed players to plan their bets by keeping track of what cards remained available in the dealing box. The operator of the case keep is called the 'casekeeper', or colloquially in the American West, the 'coffin driver'.

Cheating[edit]

In a fair game the house's edge was low, so bankers increasingly resorted to cheating the players to increase the profitability of the game for the house. This too was acknowledged by Hoyle editors when describing how faro banks were opened and operated: 'To justify the initial expenditure, a dealer must have some permanent advantage.'^[4]

By dealers[edit]

Dealers employed several methods of cheating:

• Stacked or rigged decks: A stacked deck would consist of many paired cards, allowing the dealer to claim half of the bets on that card, as per the rules. A rigged deck would contain textured cards that allowed dealers to create paired cards in the deck while giving the illusion of thorough shuffling.^[4]
• Rigged dealing boxes: Rigged, or 'gaffed', dealing boxes came in several variants. Typically, they allowed the dealer to see the next card prior to the deal, by use of a small mirror or prism visible only to the dealer. If the next card was heavily bet, the box could also allow the dealer to draw two cards in one draw, thus hiding the card that would have paid.^[4] This would result in the casekeep not accounting for the hidden card, however. If the casekeeper were employed by the house, though, he could take the blame for 'accidentally' not logging that card when it was drawn.
• Sleight of hand: In concert with the rigged dealing box, the dealer could, when he knew the next card to win, surreptitiously slide a player's bet off of the winning card if it was on the dealer's side of the layout. At a hectic faro table he could often get away with this, though it was obviously a risky move.

By players[edit]

Players would routinely cheat as well. Their techniques employed distraction and sleight-of-hand, and usually involved moving their stake to a winning card, or at the very least off the losing card, without being detected.^[4] Their methods ranged from crude to creative, and worked best at a busy, fast-paced table:

• Simple move of their bet: The most basic cheat was simply to move one's bet to the adjacent card on the layout while avoiding the banker noticing. While the simplest, it also carried the greatest risk of detection.
• Moving with a thread: A silk thread or single horse hair would be affixed to the bottom check in the bet, and allowed the stack to be pulled across the table to another card on the layout. This was less risky, as the cheating player would not have to make an overt action.
• Removing the copper: A variant on the use of the thread was to affix it to the copper token used to reverse the bet. If the losing card matched the player's bet, the copper made it a winning bet and no cheat was needed. If, however, the winning card, dealt second, were to match the player's bet the copper would ordinarily make it a loser, but quickly snatching the copper from the stack with the invisible thread turned it into a winner. This held the least risk, as once the copper was yanked from the stack, there was no thread left attached to the bet.

Being caught cheating often resulted in a fight, or even gunfire.^[4]

What Is Faro Gambling

In culture[edit]

Etymology[edit]

• The old phrase 'from soda to hock', meaning 'from beginning to end' derives from the first and last cards dealt in a round of faro.^[14] The phrase evolved from the better known 'from soup to nuts'. In turn, 'soda' and 'hock' are probably themselves derived from 'hock and soda', a popular nineteenth-century drink consisting of hock (a sweet German wine) combined with soda water.

Geography[edit]

• The town of Faro, Yukon was named after the game.^{[citation needed]}

History[edit]

The well-known author of Regency romances, Georgette Heyer, wrote a novel titled 'Faro's Daughter'; it tells of a young lady forced to deal faro to support her family and her ensuing romance with one of the gaming hall patrons (written 1941).

• The 18th-century adventurer and author Casanova was known to be a great player of faro. He mentions the game frequently in his autobiography.
• The 18th-century Prussian officer, adventurer, and author Friedrich Freiherr von der Trenck makes mention of playing faro in his memoirs (February 1726 – 25 July 1794).
• The 18th-century Dutch cavalry commander Casimir Abraham von Schlippenbach (1682–1755) also mentions the game (as Pharaon) in his memoirs. Apparently, he was able to win considerable sums of money with the game.
• The 18th century Whig radical Charles James Fox preferred faro to any other game.
• The 19th-century American 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).
• The 19th-century scam artist Canada Bill Jones 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.'
• The 19th-century lawman Wyatt Earp dealt faro for a short time after arriving in Tombstone, Arizona having acquired controlling interest in a game out of the Oriental Saloon.^[15]
• The 19th-century dentist and gambler John 'Doc' Holliday dealt faro in the Bird Cage Theater as an additional source of income while living in Tombstone, Arizona.^[16]

In popular culture[edit]

Literature and its adaptations

• In Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat, the gambler Gaylord Ravenal specializes in the game of Faro.
• Faro is mentioned extensively in John D. Fitzgerald's semi-autobiographical Silverlode/Adenville trilogy, which consists of the books Papa Married a Mormon, Mama's Boarding House, and Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse. It is one of the primary games played at the Whitehorse Saloon, owned by the character Uncle Will. In Mama's Boarding House the character Floyd Thompson, one of the tenants in the boarding house, is a Faro dealer.
• Faro is also occasionally mentioned in Fitzgerald's corresponding Great Brain series, which focuses on the children of Adenville.
• In Oliver La Farge's story 'Spud and Cochise' (1935), the cowboy Spud plays Faro when he is in a very good mood. Aware of the widespread dishonesty of American Faro dealers in his time, he nevertheless bets heavily, viewing his gambling losses as a form of charity.
• In Jack London's novel White Fang, the owner of the bulldog, Tim Keenan, is a faro dealer.
• In the Giulietta act of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann (based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann), Giulietta invites Schlemil to take his place at the table of Pharaoh.
• In Massenet's opera Manon, the game at the Hotel Transylvania is faro, and Guillot accuses des Grieux and Manon of cheating at it.
• Lord Ruthven in John William Polidori's 'The Vampyre' plays Faro in Brussels.
• The miners in Puccini's opera La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West), based on David Belasco's play The Girl of the Golden West, play a contentious game of Faro in Act One.
• Faro is central to the plot of Alexander Pushkin's story 'The Queen of Spades' and Tchaikovsky's opera adaptation, The Queen of Spades.
• In Wesley Stace's Misfortune, the character 'Pharaoh' is named after his father's profession, a Faro dealer.
• In Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, the main character runs a crooked faro bank, alternatively to his great fortune or ruin.
  • In its film adaptation, Barry Lyndon, one of the famous candlelit scenes shows Barry and his employer cheating at Faro. In the background a Moorish servant holds a casekeep showing which cards have been played.
• In a famous scene from Leo Tolstoy's book War and Peace, Nicholas Rostov loses 43,000 rubles to Dolokhov playing Faro.

Games

• In the video game Assassin's Creed Unity (2014), the main character Arno Dorian, in the early stages of the game, plays a game of Faro with a blacksmith but loses after the blacksmith cheats. Arno loses his deceased father's pocket watch and breaks into the blacksmith's house to steal it back.

Radio and motion pictures

• In the HBO TV series Deadwood, Al Swearengen mentions Faro, rather than poker, is played in his Gem Saloon, and Faro The game is referred to frequently throughout the series.
• Numerous references to Faro are made in both the Westernradio drama Gunsmoke, starring William Conrad, and the television drama Gunsmoke starring James Arness.
• The Murdoch Mysteries episode 'Staircase to Heaven' involves a murder during a game of Faro.
• In the American western The Shootist (1976), Jack Pulford (Hugh O'Brian) is a professional gambler and a Faro dealer at the Metropole Saloon.
• When planning The Sting on New York gangster Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), one of the conmen researching their mark mentions that he 'only goes out to play Faro', making him a hard target for the big con.
• In the film Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, played by Kurt Russell, becomes a Faro dealer after arriving in Tombstone.

Podcasts

• In episode 29 of the horror fiction podcast The Magnus Archives, a soldier in the Revolutionary War plays a game of Faro against a Grim Reaper-type figure to avoid his fate. Notably, as he is about to lose (and therefore die), he removes the copper in the manner described above to literally 'cheat death'.^[17]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^https://wizardofodds.com/games/faro/
2. ^'The Faro: A Card Shuffle and a Card Game'. 19 March 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
3. ^Johnson, Karl (2005). The Magician and the Cardsharp: The Search for America's Greatest Sleight-of-Hand Artist (Adapted ed.). New York: Henry Holt and Co. ISBN978-0-8050-7406-2.
4. ^ ^abcdefgh'Faro card game - Cheating at faro'.
5. ^ ^abScarne, John Scarne on Card Games: How to Play and Win at Poker, Pinochle, Blackjack, Gin and Other Popular Card Games pg. 163 Dover Publications (2004) ISBN0-486-43603-9
6. ^Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine vol. 15 pg. 176 London 1844
   Our life here would not displease you, for we eat and drink well,
   and the Earl of Coventry holds a Pharaoh-bank every night to us,
   which we have plundered considerably.
7. ^Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, p. 16, David Parlett – Oxford University Press 1996 ISBN0-19-869173-4
8. ^ ^abc'How to play faro'. Bicycle Playing Cards. Archived from the original on 2013-12-14.
9. ^ ^ab'Faro, or Bucking the Tiger'. Legends of America.
10. ^'United States v. Simms 5 U.S. 252 (1803)'. Justia. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
11. ^Murphy, Jim. 'Faro Card Game'. RealMoneyAction.com. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
12. ^The hand-book of games, p. 336, H.G. Bohn – Bell & Daldy, London 1867
13. ^The book of card games, p. 121, Peter Arnold – Barnes & Noble 1995 ISBN1-56619-950-6
14. ^Soda to hock: The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford Reference. 2005. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198609810.001.0001. ISBN9780198609810.
15. ^William M. Breakenridge, Richard Maxwell Brown Helldorado: bringing the law to the mesquite Pg. 171 University of Nebraska Press (1992) ISBN0-8032-6100-4
16. ^Wesley Treat, Mark Moran, Mark Sceurman Weird Arizona: Your Travel Guide to Arizona's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets Pg. 190 Sterling (2007) ISBN1-4027-3938-9
17. ^https://snarp.github.io/magnus_archives_transcripts/episode/029.html

Further reading[edit]

• Boussac, Jean. The Faro: Gameplay and Rules. (1896) Transl. from French, 2017.
• Dawson, Tom and Dawson, Judy. The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards, Stamford, Connecticut: US Games Systems Inc., 2000. ISBN1-57281-297-4 (Gives historical account of Faro cards in the US, extensively illustrated.)
• Maskelyne, John Nevil. Sharps and Flats, (London: 1894; reprint, Las Vegas: GBC). ISBN978-0-89650-912-2
• Russell, Gillian. 'Faro's Daughters': Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain.' Eighteenth-Century Studies 33.4 (2000): 481-504. Online
• Sanders, J. R. Faro: Favorite Gambling Game of the Frontier, Wild West Magazine, October 1996.

External links[edit]

Faro Gambling Game

• How to Play Faro on YouTube—Demonstration of how the game is played.

Faro Game For Sale