In the Old West, people considered gambling a profession, much like the clergy, the law or medicine. Professional gamblers wore expensive black suits and boots offset by snow-white ruffled shirts and dazzling brocaded vests. Ostentatious jewelry advertised the gambler’s prosperity. Huge rings adorned his fingers. A stickpin with a large stone, called a ‘headlight,’ sparkled on his chest. In a pocket of his ‘flowerbed’ vest was an enormous pocket watch adorned with precious jewels and attached to a heavy golden chain that draped across the gambler’s chest.

As people moved into the West in the 19th century, life was hard. Most of these migrants were men—miners, soldiers, explorers, opportunists. To fill their free time, they sought entertainment. Gambling establishments opened in the saloons of mining camps and new towns.

Saloons, brothels and gambling halls would appear almost overnight. In the early camps, the structure might only be a lantern-lit, dirt-floor tent, the bar simply a board stretched between two whiskey barrels, A prostitute offered her services from a cot in the bed of a wagon, and gaming occurred on a rickety table, with a few chairs and a greasy, dog-eared deck of cards. As the towns grew and prospered, one-story wooden buildings with false fronts to make them seem larger replaced the primitive ones. Later, saloons in imposing brick buildings with ornate bars, huge back-bar mirrors and brilliant chandeliers attracted wealthy gentlemen to the gaming tables. Then as the money flowed, bar-men upgraded. They built nice lounges and regular gambling games such as Faro, Roulette and Poker became popular.

Wagering was most popular between 1850 and 1910. During the 25 years before to the Civil War, gambling flourished in the towns along the Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis and was a staple attraction on virtually every riverboat. New Orleans became America’s first gambling city, as plantation owners, riverboat men, and farmers wagered away the hours.

From there, gambling traveled up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, then westward by covered wagons, and later the railroad. In gambling dens up and down the River, professional gamblers prayed on travelers, their pockets filled with their life savings, seeking to hit it big.

While many men gambled after work, others were professionals who traveled from town to town playing different games for money. However, not all who ran the games were honest. Some were outright con-men. There were those who tried to give it an air of refinement. They set up gambling halls with quality decor. Gentlemen frequented these luxurious gambling halls for a night out.

Those running the games invested their own money to fund the bank, relying on their reputations as honest dealers. The saloon owners, in turn, promoted their dealers as running respectable games. By 1880, local newspapers advertised where a person could get into a good game of faro or poker, or perhaps try their luck at roulette.

Some women gambled and were professionals in the business, too. Their personalities were as varied as were the men’s. But they didn’t get the same reception because of their gender. Even with professional skill, they weren’t accorded reputational respect.

Gambling halls operated day and night in San Francisco, Sacramento, Columbia, Nevada City and other Sierra boom towns. The gold strike in California in 1849 made San Francisco the center of gambling. With the 1860s came the great silver discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada, for which Virginia City became the gambling center.

The 1870s witnessed the great cattle drives of Texas Longhorns to the railheads in Kansas and the birth of the notorious cow towns of Abilene, Newton, Wichita, Ellsworth and Dodge City, all attracting the most notorious gamblers of the West. And although history remembers Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickock, and Bat Masterson as fearless lawmen, all were professional gamblers who spent many more hours at the faro or poker tables than they ever did patrolling the streets.

By the late 1890s, gold had been discovered in the Klondike region of Canada’s Yukon, and the last great rush to a new mining district was on. Of course, along with the prospectors and mining men who flocked to the Klondike were members of the sporting crowd, the same types who had been early arrivals at every boomtown in the West since the Forty-Niners first arrived in California. They opened saloons, brothels and gambling houses and did a flourishing business separating the miners from their gold dust.

The Table Games: Hazard, Keno, and Roulette
Hazard
A predecessor of today's Craps, Hazard consisted of a player rolling two dice while calling out a number between 5 and 9. Roll the number and win. Roll 2 or 3 and lose. But rolling 6, 8, 11, or 12 on subsequent rolls, and a player could win or lose depending on the winning number. Players had three chances to lose before the dice passed to the next player.

Chuck-a-Luck was a popular game too, because the stakes were lower for those with less money. The operator placed three dice in a small, special cage, and bettors waged on which number die would roll out, as well as two of a kind and three of a kind. Those who couldn't afford the cage used a tin horn instead, hence the phrase "Tin Horn Gambler."

Keno
Another popular option was the game of Keno. The game originated with Chinese immigrants who came to work on the transcontinental railroad. The Chinese Government had previously sponsored a game called baige piao to raise money, a popular lottery game that the Chinese immigrants brought with them. In the Old West, Americans they interacted with couldn’t quite pronounce those Chinese words. The slurring pronunciation turned into something more like Keno. In the early 20th century, it was made an official game, and the name “Keno” became its signature form. In Tombstone, the local gaming halls publicized Keno spots by employing a sort of “Town Crier” who roamed the main streets.

Roulette
Ever popular, Roulette was a French game that came West from New Orleans. But American casinos didn't like the odds the French version gave players and added extra zeroes and an Eagle symbol, which denoted a house win. And Keno pretty much was the same as now, with players placing a bet on a certain set of numbers to be chosen by draw. In Tombstone, Arizona, one gaming joint employed a town crier to roam the streets announcing the next game.

The Card Games—21, Faro, and Poker
21
Card games were some of the earliest forms of gambling in the Old West. One of the earliest popular games was "Vingt-et-un," the French name for today's 21, or Blackjack. The game remains similar to the one played today in which a player vied for cards totaling 21 without going over.

Faro
Originating in 18th-century France, Faro was one of the most popular gambling games in the Old West. Gamblers referred to the gaming hall as a Faro Bank. But technically that meant the dealer’s stake in the game, the money they supplied to run the game.

Faro was an easy game to learn and hands turned over fast. The game favored the players odds, making it the most favored game in the 19th century. Original card decks had a Bengal Tiger illustration on the back-side, thus the nickname: Bucking the Tiger. Sometimes a tiger picture was in a window announcing a game.

Problems appeared because of the odds, forcing dealers to resort to cheating. Equipment manufacturers got involved. They made cheat dealing boxes. In return, players began to cheat also.

Bat Masterson was a noted Faro shark. He’d talk a good tale to the dealer during games, for distraction. On the next round, the absorbed dealer would forget to shuffle. Bat then remembered the prior card turns, and won the plays. In Tombstone Bat witnessed his two friends, Luke Short and Charlie Storms, in a gunfight over a faro game at the Oriental Saloon.

In Faro, the dealer dealt two cards. The first was the loser, the second the winner. Players bet which would be which until all the cards had been dealt. Legitimate gaming halls warned players that virtually all Faro games were dishonest.

Poker
Professional gamblers were responsible for the poker boom. A poker table could soon be found in each saloon, surrounded by prospectors, lawmen, cowboys, railroad workers, soldiers, and outlaws for a chance to tempt fortune and fate. A lucky draw could turn a broken man into a winner.

The exact origin of poker is unknown, but historians have speculated that it originated from the 16th-century Persian card game As Nas. Played with a 25-card deck containing five suits, the rules were similar to today’s Five Card Stud.

French settlers in New Orleans first played a card game that involved bluffing and betting called Poque in the early 19th century. This old poker game was similar to “draw poker.” Players used only face cards and tens, all of which the dealer dealt with no draw. Draw Poker, on the other hand, used all 52 cards and was known as Jackpots. High stakes poker was another popular gambling alternative. To get into a game, players had to each put up $1,000.

How Cheaters Cheated at Gambling
Many professional gamblers cheated to win. And soon companies began producing card cheating devices.

Gamblers brought their guns to the table in the Old West. Their code was shoot first and ask questions later. Though firearms had no place among liquor-soaked losers who suspected a cheat, that was the way it was back then. Indeed, gaming houses were full of "card sharps" who knew all sorts of ways to part a gambler from his money. E.M. Grandine and Doctor Cross and Company were two manufacturers of marked playing cards during the mid-1830s. And there were many other ways to cheat as well.

Grandine also invented an array of devices for card cheats, including bags to attach to the underside of tables and contraptions for concealing cards "on the body." Dealers sometimes dealt from the bottom of the deck, while players could secretly "palm" or "skin the hand" to play or discard cards of their choosing. Throughout the 19th century, manufacturers also sold "cheat dealing boxes," which were especially handy for houses wanting to increase their odds against the players.

Gambling Comes to an End
The great age of Western gambling ended with the closing of the frontier and the rise of antisaloon and woman suffrage reform movements that swept across the nation in the first decades of the 20th century.