Editing Faro (banking game) (section)

==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.<ref name="desertusa" />

After 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]]''.<ref name="Scarne">Scarne, John [https://books.google.com/books?id=wGE7TVfEeIoC&q=Scarne+on+Card+Games Scarne on Card Games: How to Play and Win at Poker, Pinochle, Blackjack, Gin and Other Popular Card Games] pg. 163 Dover Publications (2004) {{ISBN|0-486-43603-9}}</ref> 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]] records in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XAcHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA176 ''Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine''] vol. 15 pg. 176 London 1844<br /> Our life here would not displease you, for we eat and drink well,<br /> and the Earl of Coventry holds a Pharaoh-bank every night to us,<br /> which we have plundered considerably.</ref>

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 [[American Old West|Old West]] from 1825 to 1915.<ref>Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, p. 16, David Parlett – Oxford University Press 1996 {{ISBN|0-19-869173-4}}</ref> Faro could be played in over 150 places in [[Washington, D.C.]] alone during the [[American Civil War]].<ref name="bicycle">{{cite web|url=http://www.bicyclecards.com/card-games/rule/faro |title=How to play faro |publisher=Bicycle Playing Cards |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214025503/http://www.bicyclecards.com/card-games/rule/faro |archive-date=2013-12-14 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="desertusa">{{cite web |url=http://www.desertusa.com/mag06/nov/faro.html |title=Faro card game - Cheating at faro}}</ref>

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 playing cards|German-suited cards]] was known as ''[[Deutsches Pharao]]'' ("German Pharo") or ''[[Süßmilch]]'' ("Sweet Milk"). It is recorded in card game compendia from at least 1810 to 1975. In [[Low German]] the game was also referred to as '''Pitje-Patje''' (= "money" + "small heaps").<ref>Lehmann & Handelmann (1858), p. 259.</ref>

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".<ref name="tiger">{{cite web|url=http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-faro.html |title=Faro, or Bucking the Tiger |publisher=Legends of America}}</ref> 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; methods of cheating in faro are detailed 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 of the United States|Supreme Court]] cases of ''[[United States v. Simms]]'', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803),<ref>{{cite web|title=United States v. Simms 5 U.S. 252 (1803)|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/5/252/case.html|publisher=Justia|access-date=25 July 2016}}</ref> and ''[[Ex parte Milburn]]'', 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 704 (1835).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ex Parte Milburn, 34 U.S. 704 (1835) |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/34/704/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Justia Law |language=en}}</ref>

Although the game became scarce after [[World War II]], it continued to be played at a few [[Las Vegas]] and [[Reno, Nevada|Reno]] 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 [[Face card|court cards]].<ref name ="Scarne"/>