Rules of the Faro Game
Faro was one of the simplest gambling games ever devised. Players bet against "the bank" or "the house," rather than against one another's póca (pocket or purse) as in a poker game. Punters (gamblers) placed their bets on a green baize layout called a "sweat" (suite, set, established, fixed, site) cloth, with the images of a suit of cards painted on it, representing all thirteen denominations from Ace to King. Once a Faro (Fiaradh) banker set out his "sweat cloth" and "case keeper" in a saloon or gambling joint, he was in business.
Sweat Cloth
Suite Cloth
A Set, Fixed, or Site (Cloth)
Unique to Faro was the "Case (Cas, Turn) Keeper," an abacus-like device, set within a wooden cabinet with miniature cards painted on to it, matching those on the layout. A thin wire ran from each card picture on which four button-shaped discs were hung, which another dealer's assistant, also called a "Case Keeper," manipulated like a miniature billiard counter, recording each of the cards as they were turned out two at a time from the tellbox. The Case Keeper allowed the bettors to determine which card denominations had been turned out of the deck.
"Keepin' cases" in a Faro game took a sharp eye and became a popular slang term for keeping a close watch on someone or something. A variation of "keeping cases," which still survives today, is the term "to case a joint," meaning to check a place out carefully with the vigilance of a "case keeper."
In Hughie, Eugene O'Neill's last play, set in a crummyhotel near Times Square in 1928, a year before the Age of Jazzbecame Age of the Stock Market Sucker, a small time grifter and gambler named "Erie" Smith, complained about his dead palHughie's wary wife.
Erie Smith: "In all the years I knew him, he never bet...on nothin'. But it ain't his fault. He'd have took a chance, but how could he with his wife keepin' cases on every nickel of his salary? I showed him lots of ways he could cross her up, but he was too scared." (22)
Case Keeper
Cas (Turn) Keeper
Cas, v., to turn, to twist, wind, coil.
Casadh, (pron. casah) Vn, act of turning, twisting, coiling.
Cas is an Irish verb meaning "to turn, twist, or wind," and its verbal nominative casadh (pron. casah) is translated as "the act of turning, twisting, winding, or coiling." Cartaí a chasadh (pron. cartee a casah) means "to turn the cards."
The Case Keeper was the Cas (Turn) Keeper. (23).
Two Irish and Scots-Gaelic words, Fiaradh and Cas, both mean "turning and twisting" in a gambling game whose main move was called "The Turn" in English.
For gamblers in an honest Faro game, the ideal time to wager was after three cards of the same denomination have been turned out. The house or bank had absolutely no advantage then, so smart players could buck (buach, pron. buak, go up against, defeat) the Tiger if the odds turned in their favor.
Like any successful gambling game, whether in a swank "rug joint" or the back lot of a carnival, Faro appeared to be a game that could be beat.
But there was no such thing as a square ('s coir, is honest and fair) Faro game; every Faro game was a scam ('s cam, is crooked). (26)
Square
'S cóir, contraction of Is cóir (é.)
Fair play. Honest. (It) is honest. (It) is fair play.
Scam
'S cam. contraction of Is cam (é.)
A trick; a deceit. Lit. (It) is crooked; (it) is a trick.
Cóir, adj. & n., honest, just, fair; proper, decent. Justice, equity, honesty, fairness.
Cam, n., crookedness, a deceit, a trick.
The turns, coils, bends, and twists of the "turning, twisting" game of Faro mirrored the Celtic triple-spirals sculpted onto the massive lintel stones of megalithic monuments in the Boyne Valley, fifteen hundred years before a Pharaoh built the first pyramid. The Tiger was the faro gambler's god of the odds and the sweat cloth was his altar.
The Tiger God of the Odds
Diaga, holy, diagaire, divine, and diagacht, a god, are all modern Irish words descended from the Old Irish word dea, meaning "a pagan divinity," and deacht, "a pagan god."
The American-Gaelic tricksters of the 19th and early 20th centuries worshipped a god who gambled with the universe.
In a Faro Game ruled by the Tiger and dealt by a mechanic (mí-cheannaíocht, an evil, crooked dealer), a sucker (sách úr, a fresh new "fat cat") or a mark (marc, target) out on a spree (spraoi, fun, sport, frolic) was lured by a roper (ropaire, a scoundrel, a thief) into a Faro joint (díonta, pron. jeent, a shelter, fig. house) where a skilled shill (síol, pron. sheel, to propagate or seed) seeded the game with the house's moolah (moll óir, a pile of gold or money), while the capper (ciapaire, a goader) goaded the swell (sóúil) to guzzle (gus óil, drink vigorously) and slug (slog, swallow, gulp) the high class whiskey (uisce) and wager his jack (tiach, pron. jiak, a purse, fig. money) with abandon.
Mechanic, a crooked Faro dealer.
Mí-cheannaíocht, an evil dealer.
Sucker
Sách úr. a new, green, well-fed fellow. A fresh "fat cat"
Mark, a sucker who has become the "target" of a professional gambler.
Marc, a target
Roper, the scoundrel who "ropes" suckers into a "braced" (fixed) Faro game.
Ropaire, a scoundrel, a thief.
Joint, any place a Faro banker sets up his "sweat" cloth.
Díonta (pron. jynt or jeent), a shelter, fig. any type of shelter from a shanty to a mansion.
Shill, the "shill" seeds the game with the faro banker's moolah (money) and often wins big to lure the "marks" into a fixed Faro game.
Síol, (pron, sheel), to propagate, seed, or sow.
A "Mark Anthony" what gamblers call a "super-sucker."
Marc andána: a rash and reckless mark.
The premier Faro rug joint of 19th century New York City was the Tapis Franc, where the organization put the screw to the slumming dude (dúd) and fleeced the flush (flúirse, pron. flursh, abundant, plentiful) pockets of the "super-sucker" known as a "Mark Anthony" (marc andána, pron. mark antanay, a rash and reckless mark) who tried to buck the Faro Tiger.
() 
