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I only have a joker; a joker.
Okay, cameras rolling. This is the 3-card Monte.
All right; you guys ready?
Action.
And how long have you lived in New York City?
Six to seven years.
So you've been here a little bit. Have you ever seen anybody on the street every playing
a game called 3-card Monte? You may have seen them with little cardboard tables they often
have set up. This is probably one of the oldest scams in the entire city. It's a really simple
game to describe; because all it is, is you start with two jokers, and one queen. And
all you have to do to win is follow the queen. Do you think you can do it, Ann? Do you want
to give it a shot?
All right, are you ready? Two jokers, one queen. This game is also known as follow the
lady, so follow the lady. Right? Do you know where the queen is? Go ahead and take a guess.
Not bad; one more time. Do you know where the queen is? Ah, you got me again. All right,
I'll tell you what; if you want to really put some money on it you can put some money
on it.
All right, so now we'll play one more round, and this time with a quarter on the table.
Right? We'll bet a quarter. All you've got to do; we'll do this nice and slow, just follow
the queen. Got her? You know where she is; she's right there. All you've got to do is
follow the queen. Where's the queen? Ah, I guess you owe me a quarter. And that's how
the queen for maybe the first one, maybe the second run, but by the time you put money
on the table that queen's going to be somewhere else.
So why don't we play with you guys at home, right. Follow the queen; she's right there.
So where is she? If you said right over here you'd be right, but the moment you put money
on it, I'll show you the queen right there. If you said over here you'd be a few bucks
short.
Now the way the move works is the moment I feel like cheating as I pick up the queen,
like that. Now what you think is happening and what is happening when I'm playing fair
is I'm tossing the queen, so she ends up here. But in order to deceive the eye and of course
steal your money, what a lot of Monte scams will do is they'll take the card and they'll
do what's called the Monte throw, where instead of tossing the queen down they'll actually
toss the top card. Now the reason this is so effective is because it's almost impossible
to distinguish from the real version of the move.
So again, you'll take the queen; we know she's right there, take the queen again. And of
course she has to be here, until she's not. So never play 3-card Monte; it's a scam and
even if you pick the right card there are all sorts of moves that we're not going to
go into right now, but moves like the turnover, which involves switching out a card. So even
if you guess right you're still not going to win unless they want you to.
So, be careful; keep your money in your pocket, and remember; only a sucker plays 3-card Monte.