Inveterate gambler Bat Masterson once so engrossed a dealer in a tale of his glory days that the fellow absent-mindedly shoved cards from a completed game back into a dealing box ‘without even the suspicion of a shuffle.’ The cagey Bat caught the error, and by checking his tab from the pervious game won turn after turn, losing only an occasional small bet ‘for decency’s sake.’ Toward the end, with Bat anxiously prepared to ‘earthquake’ the last turn, the dealer suddenly smelled a rat and turned over his dealing box, ending the game.

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Redoubtable gunman Ben Thompson destroyed a Leadville, Colo., game after losing $3,000 in 1879, when the mining town boasted more than 100 gambling dens (most of them along State Street, nicknamed ‘Tiger Alley’ for its abundance of faro banks). On a later occasion in an Austin, Texas, saloon, Thompson idly watched a dealer named Lorraine clean players through several turns; then, without warning, Thompson cleared leather and began shooting stacks of checks off the layout. After also plugging the dealing box and the lamps above the table, Thompson explained to those few onlookers who remained, ‘I don’t think that set of tools is altogether honest, and I would like to help Mr. Lorraine buy another.’ Fueled by bug juice, the fiery shootist then bulldozed a neighboring saloon, taking out a keno goose, a few more lamps and several streetlights in his wake. The following morning, a sober and contrite Thompson reported to the mayor’s office and paid all damages. Such antics apparently did not faze Austin’s voting public, for Thompson was elected city marshal in 1880.Luke Short, one of the sporting fraternity equally skilled with a dealing box or a six-shooter, could not tolerate cheats. At a faro game in a Leadville saloon in 1879, a local hard case named Brown shifted one of Luke’s bets on the layout. When Brown rudely ignored his polite request to desist, Luke made his next request by way of a lead slug fired point-blank through the cheater’s cheek. Brown meddled no further with the dapper little gambler’s game.

In February 1881, an argument over a faro game in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, led to fatal gunplay between Short and gambler Charlie Storms, a clash witnessed by Bat Masterson. Masterson entered the Oriental Saloon and found the two, both friends of his, about to do battle. Bat persuaded the drunken Storms to go home and sleep it off, personally escorting him there. He had scarcely returned to the Oriental when Storms suddenly reappeared and yanked Short off the sidewalk. Before Masterson could intervene again, both men drew their guns. Short was quicker, and Storms fell dead with bullets through his neck and heart. Another witness, George Parsons, noted in his journal that after Storms’ body was carried to his room, ‘ the Faro games went right on as though nothing had happened.’

In 1875, a faro dealer named Tom McKey bucked the suckers at Babbitt’s House in Denver, working alternatively as dealer and lookout. He moved on in the summer of ‘76 to Cheyenne, where he ran a bank in Ford’s Place. Presumably, no one who bet at the nimble-fingered McKey’s layout knew he was actually a Georgia-born dentist named John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday. Doc found gambling more lucrative and satisfying than yanking molars, and it was a trade he plied across the West throughout his brief life. In 1880, Doc ran a bank at the Alhambra Saloon in Tombstone, a venture shared with perhaps the West’s best-known faro dealer, Wyatt Earp.

During his sojourn in Tombstone, Earp owned gambling interests in several saloons, sharing the green cloth with his brothers and a cadre of Earp allies, most notably Holliday, Luke Short and Bat Masterson. He not only dealt but also, like a true aficionado, avidly bucked the bank. After a falling-out with proprietor Milt Joyce, Earp gave up his one-quarter interest in the Oriental Saloon’s faro concession, only to learn that a new bank operating there was owned by his hated enemy, Cochise County Sheriff John Behan. Learning that Behan’s total capital was $5,000, Wyatt entered a game with the sheriff himself in the lookout seat, playing until his pile topped $6,000. When Wyatt announced he was cashing in, Behan protested, lamely offering to make good any further winnings. Earp tersely responded: ‘I’ll take mine in cash. Your credit with me doesn’t cover a white chip.’ Wyatt collected his winnings, and Behan’s bank folded for good. After the O.K. Corral fracas and its bloody aftermath, Wyatt Earp left for friendlier and healthier regions. He landed in Gunnison, Colo., and found work running the far games in Charley Biebel’s saloon, where, according to a local police officer named Riley, ‘he always wore two guns, high up under his arms.’ Wyatt apparently had little need of the guns, but maintained order with his reputation and the characteristic Earp cool.

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