Three-card monte

Three-card monte
	A game in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel (2005). It has all the hallmarks of the con; the cards are slightly curved, the corners have been bent and the dealer has the cash in hand to conceal any sleight-of-hand.
Origin	Spanish
Type	Gambling
Players	Np.
Skills	Chance
Cards	3
Deck	Any deck
Playing time	5–10 min
Chance	Easy
Related games
	Monte Bank

Three-card monte – also known as find the lady and three-card trick – is a confidence game in which the victims, or "marks", are tricked into betting a sum of money, on the assumption that they can find the "money card" among three face-down playing cards. It is very similar to the shell game except that cards are used instead of shells.

In its full form, three-card monte is an example of a classic "short con" in which a shill pretends to conspire with the mark to cheat the dealer, while in fact doing the reverse. The mark has no chance whatsoever of winning, at any point in the game. In fact, anyone who is observed winning anything in the game can be presumed to be a shill.

This confidence trick was already in use by the turn of the 15th century.

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