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Gaming executive Jackie Gaughan demonstrates how to play the game of faro, shunned by modern casinos. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Monday, October 23, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Former dealer hopes for return of faro

Game originated in 1700s, disappeared from Nevada casinos in '80s

VIRGINIA CITY -- The tattered green felt faro table on display here at the Delta Saloon has survived the boom and bust of the Comstock Lode and stood silently as thousands of illiterate miners won and lost fortunes.

Locals call this faro bank "the suicide table." Legend has it three Delta owners killed themselves after the odds on "bucking the tiger" went against them and lowly players walked away as tycoons.

The last of the unhappy Delta owners killed himself sometime in the 1890s when a fortunate miner won $80,000, a team of horses and an interest in a gold mine.

Faro was the game of the old West. Doc Holliday dealt faro before strapping on his guns at Tombstone and walking up the street with Wyatt Earp to shoot down the bad guys.

Today, a gambler cannot find a faro game anywhere in the world. Former dealer Jim Finley, who worked in 50 joints from Ely to Reno to Las Vegas, wants to return the game to its former glory.

"It is the most perfectly designed game the world has known," said Finley, who at 73 is retired in Rogue River, Ore. "It is 15 times faster than baccarat. I don't want to see the damned game die."

Finley gave a demonstration of faro two years ago during a gaming conference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He claims he can teach a player the basic principles of faro in three minutes.

But he has found no takers in the gaming industry. He wants to find a casino willing to put in a faro bank and let him shill the game to the curious. When he dies, Finley figures faro is dead.

"I'm the last chance faro has got," Finley said. "All it takes is one person to spread the game. Gambling means to take a chance."

Called the "game of gamblers," faro originated in Europe in the 1700s. It became known as faro from the picture of a pharaoh on French playing cards.

By the early 1800s, the game was a favorite of the riverboat gamblers along the Mississippi River. The game followed the pioneers West. Dozens of games were played in Virginia City during Mark Twain's tenure on the Territorial Enterprise newspaper.

"Bank clubs" opened in the early 19th century boom towns of Goldfield and Tonopah. Nevadans referred to the game as "bucking the tiger" from the picture of the tiger displayed on walls outside saloons to denote they had a faro bank.

One of the most famous Nevada high rollers, "Nick the Greek" Dandolos, made most of his money on craps, but preferred faro.

Dandolos, who died in 1966, liked to joke he won and lost 73 fortunes in a gambling career that ended with poverty. He won more than $500 million, but lost it all. As late as the 1940s and 1950s, he scurried through Las Vegas and Reno looking for honest faro games.

"He'd play five days in a row without going to bed," longtime Las Vegas gaming executive Jackie Gaughan remembered. "Faro was his No. 1. He played against me at the Las Vegas Club. He always had trouble with money."

But by the time Nevada legalized gambling in 1931, faro had lost much of its popularity.

The first licensed casino, the Owl Club in Reno, offered no faro games when it opened on March 26, 1931. Four days later, the Bank Club opened up the street with three faro games.

The Bank Club, owned by mobsters Bill Graham and Jim McKay, became one of the biggest businesses in the state. By 1936, it ran advertisements bragging it "pays the most taxes to the state," and was "the business that serves the finest liquors and the establishment that never closes."

But by 1954 -- about the time Finley learned to deal faro in an Ely casino -- there were just five faro games left in the entire state. Gaughan, now 80, closed his last faro game in 1975 at the Union Plaza. The Ramada in Reno offered faro until 1985.

"Faro is a game that is pretty close (in odds)," Gaughan said. "There is not much of a percentage for the house. It drew all the dealers (from other clubs) and sharp gamblers because it was so close. Faro was a game that scared everybody (in casinos) to death."

You don't need to be a card counter in this game. Faro has a "casekeeper" who counts for players. He sits across the dealer and keeps track of each card played on an abacuslike device.

The casekeeper moves the abacus to note what cards were played and whether they won or lost. Observant players thus know which cards have been played and which cards remain in the deck.

When he first opened a faro game at the Las Vegas Club in 1941, Gaughan said he had players lining the street to play.

"Everybody would go for it because the odds were even," he said. "The house wasn't going to make any money to speak of."

Gaughan said the game was ripe with cheaters, particularly crooked dealers. And people would hold back from gambling until near the end of games.

That's because they could look at the casekeeper and note the cards played. Under some circumstances, the house had no advantage.

Warren Nelson, 87, began his gaming career in 1936 in Reno. He is most known for being the person who brought keno to Nevada. At 25 he dealt faro, and he still owns a share of the Club Cal-Neva in Reno.

Like Gaughan, he figures faro could not make it in today's gaming environment.

"It was like flipping pennies," he remembered. "It is a good game, no question, but you couldn't bring it back. You could make more money in the same amount of space with any other game."

Nelson also figures players are too busy today to take the time to learn the rules of faro.

"That's why slot machines are so popular," Nelson said. "There are no rules."

Anthony Curtis, who publishes the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter, figures faro died from natural selection.

"I can't see why someone would resurrect it," said Curtis. "The game would not be exciting. It has been analyzed and discarded."

But faro discipline is something Finley won't give up easily. He insists the game lost its luster because the casinos would not promote it. Old-time players gave the cold shoulder to women and young people who tried to sit in their games, he added.

"Faro is mysterious and exciting as hell," he said. "It's got a language of its own. It's the Old West. The casinos today aren't in gambling. They don't want a game you can win."