In the game of Faro, the dealer is also the banker. During the game, his personal fortune is at risk. One notorious episode in the history of Faro is the story of Black Jake. Black Jake owned a Faro table in Virginia City, Nevada in the 1860s. According to legend, he shot himself after losing $70,000 in one night. The next owner of the table lost his personal fortune in one night. He, too, shot himself. Considered bad luck, the table was stored until the 1890s when the Delta Saloon brought it out of retirement and turned it into a Blackjack table. As the story goes, a drunken gold miner, stinging from heavy losses at a neighboring saloon entered the Delta. He proceeded to wager his last possession, a gold ring, for $5. He won, and went on to win $86,000, a gold mine, and some horses. He wiped out the dealer’s fortune. The dealer, as you would expect, shot himself. The table was retired and never used again. Thinking of playing Faro? Might want to unload your pistol if you’re thinking of dealing.

The Rules of Faro
The following rules are paraphrased from “The Board Game Book”:

Players: Any number.
Pieces: Gaming chips, 1 standard deck of 52 playing cards
Aim: Gambling game of pure chance

Rules:
The dealer is the banker, and sets the minimum and maximum bet amounts. The maximum bet limits refer to the wager amount for plain bets, and to the number of times a bet may be “parleyed”.

Players place bets on a cloth-covered board containing the 13 card denominations (Ace, 2 thru 10, Jack, Queen, and King) displayed for a single suit (usually spades).

All bets are even-money bets; a bet may be declared against the given denomination by “coppering” it.

Various special bets are allowed. According to R.C. Bell:
“There are many esoteric methods of staking bets, but they add little to the game and tend to confuse the inexperienced, so they are omitted here.”

One can imagine betting on two or four cards at a time, in a manner similar to Roulette.

After the initial bets are placed, the card deck is shuffled, and then placed face up inside a shoe.

The first top card is called the “soda”, and neither wins nor loses. After play starts, the soda is discarded next to the betting board.

For 25 successive turns, the prior top card is discarded onto the soda pile. The next top card is a loser, and is discarded between the shoe and the soda. The next top card is a winner; it is left on the deck.

On successive turns, the prior winner card is discarded onto the soda pile.

Whenever the loser and winner cards are the same denomination for a turn, this is declared a “split”. The dealer takes half of all bets staked for or against that denomination; this provides the house edge in a fair game.

After each turn, the dealer settles any bets on the winning and losing cards. All other bets are unaffected, and remain in place for the next turn.

Between turns, a player may modify any bet by declaring that he wants to “bar” a given bet for one turn.

A player may “halve” a bet by telling the dealer; such a declaration stays active until revoked by the player.

A player may also add or remove a copper from any bet.

After each turn, winning and losing bets are settled, and new bets can be made for the next turn.

When the deck is exhausted, a new deal is started, and play proceeds.

The last card in the deck is called the “hock”, and is not used.

When there are only 3 cards left in the deck (one more turn), players may Call the Last Turn by guessing the order that the 3 denominations will appear. If the 3 cards are different, and the player guesses correctly, he wins 4 times the bet. If 2 of the three cards have the same denomination, he wins twice the bet.