Three-card monte

"Find the lady" redirects here. For one of the three films of the same name, see Find the Lady (film).
Three-card monte
A game in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel (2005). It has all the hallmarks of the con; the cards are slightly curved, the corners have been bent and the dealer has the cash in hand to conceal any sleight-of-hand.
OriginSpanish[citation needed]
TypeGambling
PlayersNp.
SkillsChance
Cards3
DeckAny deck
Playing time5–10 min
ChanceEasy
Related games
Monte Bank

Three-card monte – also known as find the lady and three-card trick – is a confidence game in which the victims, or "marks", are tricked into betting a sum of money, on the assumption that they can find the "money card" among three face-down playing cards. It is very similar to the shell game except that cards are used instead of shells.[1]

In its full form, three-card monte is an example of a classic "short con"[2] in which a shill pretends to conspire with the mark to cheat the dealer, while in fact doing the reverse. The mark has no chance whatsoever of winning, at any point in the game. In fact, anyone who is observed winning anything in the game can be presumed to be a shill.

This confidence trick was already in use by the turn of the 15th century.[3]

  1. ^ Tom Ogden The Complete Idiot's Guide to Magic Tricks, p. 123, Alpha Books (1998) ISBN 0-02-862707-5
  2. ^ "Three-card monte scam artists return to midtown". 2014-12-26. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  3. ^ Paul B. Newman Daily life in the Middle Ages, p. 169, McFarland (2001) ISBN 0-7864-0897-9