Gambling
"Betting on shuffleboard,
billiards, cards, and other games was common in all social classes in colonial
New York City. . . . In the mid eighteenth century lotteries were introduced
from England and used by churches, public corporations, and the city government
to raise money for charitable causes and public works. . . .
"Gambling in New York
City changed little until the 1830s, when the city became the largest in
the nation, and its rapidly growing and affluent population sought new
diversions. The demand for gambling increased despite concerns about
public morality heightened by many scandals in lotteries during the first
two decades of the nineteenth century, and bans by the state legislature
on lotteries in the 1830s and gambling halls and other public gambling
places in the 1840s. Professional gamblers availed themselves of
the opportunity to build businesses that were soon linked to city politics
and popular entertainment, thus creating the basis for organized crime.
New card games were developed and became immensely popular. One of
the first was faro, introduced in the city in the 1840s: by placing chips
or money on a cloth embossed with a suit of cards, players bet on which
card would appear next from a deck turned face down in a dealing box.
Faro was the most popular card game of chance during the nineteenth century
because of its speed and because the odds were more favorable to the bettor
than in any other card game, even though operators cheated in many ways.
Professional gamblers were attracted by the enormous profits to be made
in faro, and from 1835 the opened posh "hells," forerunners of modern casinos,
in choice locations along Broadway from 24th Street to the Battery.
By the 1860s there were about one hundred hells; wealth and connections
to government allowed the proprietors to operate quite openly. . . .
"Off-track betting
and bookmaking were developed in the 1870s and soon controlled by professional
gamblers, who by the end of the century had a monopoly on the betting services
that sustained most spectator sports. . . .
"Although gambling
was illegal the city's gamblers conducted their business openly, shielded
from arrest by their money, political influence, and tight organization.
Some professional gamblers formed ties with the heads of political machines,
such as Big Tim Sullivan, a leader of Tammany Hall . . . . Many exerted
influence privately, and gamblers remained powerful in local politics well
into the twentieth century. The acceptance of gambling by the public
made it ossible to earn large profits and encouraged shrewd entrepreneurs.
. . ."
The Encyclopedia of
New York City
Editor, Kenneth T. Jackson
Author of article, David R. Johnson
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Evils of Card Playing
Raids on Euchre Parties Arouse Discussion
of Topic.
To the Editor of the Tribune.
Sir: There
is at least one good which has resulted from the euchre rais of the busy
and energeti Captain O'Reilly--they have opened up a public discussion
which must prove of great value to the morals of society. In hunting
through my notes for soemthing wise and appropriate on the subject of card
playing, I came across the following, which is taken from Schopenhauer's
essay on "The Wisdom of Life":
And if there
is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the devil's
tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising his brains.
Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card playing,
and it is the gauge of its value and an outward sign that it is bankrupt
in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal
cards, and try to win one another's money. Idiots! But I do not wish
to be unjust; so let me remark that it may certainly be said in defence
of card playing that it is a preparation for the world and for business
life, because one learns thereby how to make a clever use of fortuitous
but unalterable circumstances (cards, in this case), and to get as much
out of them as one can; and to do this a man must learn a little dissimulation,
and how to put a good face upon a bad business. But, on the other
hand, it is exactly for this reason that card playing is so demoralizing,
since the whole subject of it is to employ every kind of trick and machination
in order to win what belongs to another. And a habit of this sort,
learned at the card table, strikes root and pushes its way into practical
life; and in the affairs of every day a man gradually comes to regard meum
and tuum in much the same light as cards, and to consider that he may use
to the utmost whatever advantages he possess, so long as he does not come
within the arm of the law. Examples of what I mean are of daily occurrence
in mercantile life. Since, then, leisure is the flower, or rather
the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into possession of himself those
are happy indeed who possess something real in themselves. But what
do you get from most people's leisure?--only a good for nothing fellow,
who is terribly bored and a burden to himself. . . .
New York Daily Tribune, Wednesday, April
1, 1903
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