Find The Lady

This is an article by Joe Saumarez Smith that appeared in the April 2001 edition of Business Life, British Airway`s inflight magazine for business class travellers.

There’s a theory that gamblers like to lose. Freud found all sorts of subconscious reasons why they use gambling as a substitute for sex. And it’s certainly true that most gamblers do lose – whether they are playing the lottery, blackjack or poker.

But few are prepared to play a game in which they are guaranteed to lose – where there is no chance of ever getting a payout, however small. And yet one of the most enduring gambling mediums worldwide offers just that – the infamous game of Find The Lady.

Most people will have seen it – and a surprisingly large number of readers of this magazine will have lost money at it. From street corners in New York’s Chinatown – where it is also knows as three-card monte - to the racecourse at Royal Ascot, there will be gangs of people operating a game.

The theory is simple. The operator has three playing cards; one is the King of Spades, another is the King of Clubs and the third is the Queen of Hearts. The operator turns them face down, side by side. He (and it is invariably a large, muscular man) shows the Queen of Hearts to those watching, turns it over and then shuffles the cards quickly around. The watching audience are then invited to “find the lady”. If you can find the Queen of Hearts, you win double the bet you put down.

Variations of this include cork balls hidden under walnut shells, metal discs marked with paint and, most enterprisingly, Find the Lady played with triplets – two boys and a girl – by PG Woodhouse’s Bertie Wooster.

If you’ve ever watched the game then you’ll know how it pans out. An eager audience will gather round. There will be a demonstration, in which you easily follow where the Queen of Hearts has gone. The next time, a man will come forward and place a substantial bet. He picks his card – the same card you would have picked when you followed the movement of the Queen – and wins. The operator reluctantly pays him out. He plays again for more – and wins. If you had played, you again would have been a winner. The operator bans the successful punter for being too good.

You, or, with a bit of luck, someone else in the audience, decides to play too. This time the player loses. You’re certain you followed the movement of the cards but for some reason you get it wrong. You’ve just lost $100 or £20 or some amount you didn’t want to lose. If you’re really foolish you keep playing. And losing.

The reason is you can never win. The man who you saw winning was an accomplice of the gang. In fact, so were most of the other people watching, encouraging you to back your opinion with hard currency. It’s a simple yet sophisticated con trick. The simplicity is in the sleight of hand; the ‘tossing’ of the cards so the human eye is tricked into believing it has seen something other than what has actually happened. The sophistication is sucking people into playing.

I know scores of highly intelligent people who have been suckered by Find The Lady. One man I know spent a successful evening gambling at the now-extinct Wembley greyhound track in London. He walked out a big winner but on the way back to the station he passed a gang playing the game. He played and lost. After two tries he turned and walked away. About 200 yards down the line a man in his mid seventies approached him and asked whether he had lost. My friend explained he had and the old man said: “I know how to beat these guys. It’s simple.” They went back and he won his first bet following the old man’s advice. The next round he played for the rest of his money – to get his previous losses back and make a little more – and lost. The old man was, of course, just another member of the gang.

Of course, if something goes wrong and you do miraculously pick the Queen, you won’t be paid either. The gang will turn on you, or find some way to dodge a payout. Darwin Ortiz, one of America’s leading authorities on gambling scams, was one of the few people who could follow the movements of the cards with ease but still was unable ever to get paid by the operators of the scam.

The game has a remarkable history, dating back to the mid-19th Century. Its most famous practitioner was Canada Bill Jones, who made his fortune playing on the Mississippi steamboats, on the railways and from shops he owned which masqueraded as real businesses. Such was his success, Jones once offered the superintendent of the Union Pacific Railroad an annual fee of $10,000 for exclusive rights to work Find The Lady on their trains. He even promised that he would only try to win off commercial travellers and Methodist priests. The offer was rejected by the railroad authorities.

That he was willing to pay so much then and the fact the game has endured almost unchanged for so long should prove why you should always steer clear. This is one game that really isn’t a gamble at all.