Ye Olde Magick Blogge

I’ve got a personal pet peeve — magicians who embrace the fallacy that just because we might be good with sleight-of-hand that we somehow can cash in on the intrigue and fascination that people have with cheaters. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had spectators ask if I can use what I do in Casinos, and I’m sure that when I tell them the truth, they’re somewhat disappointed. That said, I’d rather do that than throw out nonsense lines about how people never want to play cards with me, or how the cups and balls has something in common the shell game. Perhaps I’m being extreme — heck, even when I’m doing the shell game or monte for audiences, if they show even the slightest interest about how the game really works, I let them know that there’s a huge difference between the way I do it in a magic show and the way it’ll work on the street.

I think it boils down to this — fooling people with the cups and balls or a card trick requires a different skill set than cheating somebody in a money game, and accepting any acclaim for the appearance of having insider knowledge is tantamount to the guy who plays a doctor on TV pretending to be a real doctor. If you’re trying to be in character when passing yourself off as an expert as to how these scams work, then ok, that’s one thing, but hopefully you’ve done some research about the way these things really do go down. If nothing else, keep in mind that while a magician would be thrilled to have the world know how gifted he is with cards, when it comes to who really does cheat at cards for a living, some of them would just as soon never have their name mentioned. In fact, there’s the guy I know through a guy, and not only am I not allowed to state his name as a card cheat, I’m not even allowed to talk about the poker variant that he cleans up with. I mean, I suppose I could, but then I’d be cutting myself off for having violated the trust.

In any case, that’s why I’ve included this particular video in this month’s Cups and Balls feature — if only to make people think twice when trying to portray the cups and balls as being similar to the shell game, or in mindless copying patter to that effect. Even a cursory study of the genre will reveal just how different they are.

I know that not everybody does this, and I’m sure that many who do, do so understanding the massive differences between them and know that they’re invoking the scam for theatrical gains. For everybody else… watch the video, and learn. This is the late Gambling Sam, who used to frequent Whit Haydn’s Scoundrel’s Forum.

Rant over.