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Faro ( ), Pharaoh, Pharao, or Farobank is a late 17th-century French gambling game using cards. It is descended from Basset, and belongs to the Lansquenet and
Monte Bank Monte Bank, Mountebank, Spanish Monte and Mexican Monte, sometimes just Monte, is a Spanish gambling card game and was known in the 19th century as the national card game of Mexico. It ultimately derives from basset, where the banker (dealer) ...
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 Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
, but Faro was often just as popular due to its fast action, easy-to-learn rules, and better odds 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, Faro was eventually overtaken by poker as the preferred card game of gamblers in the early 1900s. Variants include German Faro, Jewish Faro, and Ladies' Faro.


History

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. 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 Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...
''.Scarne, Joh
Scarne on Card Games: How to Play and Win at Poker, Pinochle, Blackjack, Gin and Other Popular Card Games
pg. 163 Dover Publications (2004)
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 George James Williams, known familiarly as Gilly Williams (1719–1805) was an English official, known as a wit and letter writer. Life Born at Denton, Lincolnshire, he was a younger son of William Peere Williams and Anne, daughter of Sir George ...
records in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752. 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 The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
from 1825 to 1915. Faro could be played in over 150 places in Washington, D.C. alone during the Civil War. 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. 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 Tempeln, also known as Meine Tante – Deine Tante, and its 32-card version, known as Naschi Waschi, German Pharaoh, Stoß or Süßmilch, are very simple historical, German, gambling card games played with French or German playing cards. They diff ...
'' ("German Pharo") or '' Süßmilch'' (Sweet Milk). 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". 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 ''United States v. Simms'', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803), was a United States Supreme Court case. It was one of a series of cases dealing with the applicability of previous laws in the newly created District of Columbia. Background Prior to th ...
'', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803), and ''
Ex parte Milburn The Marshall Court (1801–1835) heard forty-one criminal law cases, slightly more than one per year. Among such cases are '' United States v. Simms'' (1803), ''United States v. More'' (1805), '' Ex parte Bollman'' (1807), '' United States ...
'', 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 704 (1835). Although the game became scarce after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, it continued to be played at a few
Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...
and
Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...
casinos through 1985.


Etymology

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.


Rules


Description

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 in the US were 50 cents to $10 each. The faro table was typically oval, covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one
suit A suit, lounge suit, or business suit is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt suit is similar, but with a matching skirt instead of ...
of cards (traditionally
spades SPAdes (St. Petersburg genome assembler) is a genome assembly algorithm which was designed for single cell and multi-cells bacterial data sets. Therefore, it might not be suitable for large genomes projects. SPAdes works with Ion Torrent, PacBio ...
) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting "layout". Each player laid her 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 her 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

* A deck of cards was shuffled and placed inside a "dealing box", a mechanical device also known as a "
shoe A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the Foot, human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from cult ...
", 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. * 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. * 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. 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. 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. A device, called a "casekeep" was employed to assist the players and prevent dealer cheating by counting cards. The casekeep resembled an
abacus The abacus (''plural'' abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool which has been used since ancient times. It was used in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the H ...
, 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

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."


By dealers

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. * 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. 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

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. 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.


In culture


Etymology

* 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. 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

* The town of Faro, Yukon was named after the game.


History

* 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 Friedrich Freiherr von der Trenck (16 February 1726 – 25 July 1794) was a Prussian officer, adventurer, and author. Coat of arms The coat of arms of the Trenck family depicts in red the head of a silver bull with golden tongue and golden ...
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 Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled ''The Honourable'' from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-riv ...
preferred faro to any other game. * The 19th-century American con man
Soapy Smith Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II (November 2, 1860 – July 8, 1898) was an American con artist and gangster in the American frontier. Smith operated confidence schemes across the Western United States, and had a large hand in organized cri ...
was a faro dealer. It was said that every faro table in Soapy's Tivoli Club in
Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...
, 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 Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which la ...
dealt faro for a short time after arriving in Tombstone, Arizona, having acquired controlling interest in a game out of the Oriental Saloon. * 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.Wesley Treat, Mark Moran, Mark Sceurma
''Weird Arizona: Your Travel Guide to Arizona's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets''
p. 190. Sterling (2007), .


In popular culture

;Literature and its adaptations * The well-known author of Regency romances,
Georgette Heyer Georgette Heyer (; 16 August 1902 – 4 July 1974) was an English novelist and short-story writer, in both the Regency romance and detective fiction genres. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brothe ...
, wrote a novel entitled
Faro's Daughter ''Faro's Daughter'' is a Georgian romance novel by Georgette Heyer that was first published in 1941 by Heinemann in the UK and in the US by Doubleday in 1942. The story's focus is on the misfortunes of an aunt and niece trying to run a gambling ...
; it tells of a young lady forced to deal faro to support her family and her ensuing romance with one of the gaming hall's patrons. * In
Edna Ferber Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' So Big'' (1924), '' Show Boat'' (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), '' C ...
's novel ''
Show Boat ''Show Boat'' is a musical theatre, musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 Show Boat (novel), novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the pe ...
'', 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 Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge II (December 19, 1901 – August 2, 1963) was an American writer and anthropologist. In 1925 he explored early Olmec sites in Mexico, and later studied additional sites in Central America and the American Southw ...
'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 John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...
's novel '' White Fang'', the owner of the bulldog, Tim Keenan, is a faro dealer. * In the Giulietta act of
Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ''T ...
's opera '' The Tales of Hoffmann'' (based on three short stories by
E. T. A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in E ...
), 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 Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...
'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 Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
'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 ''Barry Lyndon'' is a 1975 Period film, period drama film written, directed, and produced by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel ''The Luck of Barry Lyndon'' by William Makepeace Thackeray. Starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Ma ...
'', 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 Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
's book ''
War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...
'', Nicholas Rostov loses 43,000 rubles to Dolokhov playing faro. ;Games * In the video game ''
Assassin's Creed Unity ''Assassin's Creed Unity'' is an action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released in November 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and in December 2020 for Stadia. It ...
'' (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 Deadwood may refer to: Places Canada * Deadwood, Alberta * Deadwood, British Columbia * Deadwood River, a tributary of the Dease River in northern British Columbia United States * Deadwood, California (disambiguation), several communiti ...
'', 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 Western
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...
drama ''
Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central chara ...
'', starring William Conrad, and the television drama ''Gunsmoke'' starring James Arness. * The ''
Murdoch Mysteries ''Murdoch Mysteries'' is a Canadian television drama series that premiered on Citytv on January 20, 2008, and currently airs on CBC. The series is based on characters from the ''Detective Murdoch'' novels by Maureen Jennings and stars Yannick ...
'' episode "Staircase to Heaven" involves a murder during a game of Faro. * In the American western ''
The Shootist ''The Shootist'' is a 1976 American Western film directed by Don Siegel and based on Glendon Swarthout's 1975 novel of the same name.Swarthout, Glendon (1975). ''The Shootist'', New York, New York: Doubleday. It is John Wayne's final film ...
'' (1976), Jack Pulford (
Hugh O'Brian Hugh O'Brian (born Hugh Charles Krampe; April 19, 1925 – September 5, 2016) was an American actor and humanitarian, best known for his starring roles in the ABC Western television series '' The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp'' (1955– ...
) 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 Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which la ...
, played by
Kurt Russell Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the western series '' The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' (1963–1964). In the late 1960s, he signed a ten-year contract with Th ...
, becomes a Faro dealer after arriving in Tombstone. * Australian TV series ''
Harrow Harrow may refer to: Places * Harrow, Victoria, Australia * Harrow, Ontario, Canada * The Harrow, County Wexford, a village in Ireland * London Borough of Harrow, England ** Harrow, London, a town in London ** Harrow (UK Parliament constituency) ...
'' episode "Alea lacta est", features a murder plot centered around the fictional ''Brisbane Faro Society''.


See also

* Cassino (card game) * Commerce (card game) * Phat (card game) *
Va banque ''Va banque'' or ''Vabanque'' is a gambling term from the card game of Pharo or Faro, which was popular in the 18th and 19th century. It is similar to the decision to "go bank" (or "''banco''") in '' chemin de fer'', a form of baccarat. It ...


References


Further reading

* 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. (Gives historical account of Faro cards in the US, extensively illustrated.) * Maskelyne, John Nevil

(London: 1894; reprint, Las Vegas: GBC). * 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

''Wild West Magazine'', October 1996.


External links

* —Demonstration of how the game is played. {{DEFAULTSORT:Faro (Card Game) 17th-century gambling games Banking games French gambling games Lottery card games