Quote:
Originally Posted by 74-911
I witnessed this exact thing at the Feast of San Genarro? in NYC back in the early 80's. A guy (late 20's I would guess) dressed in an expensive looking suit with a drop dead gorgeous blond - trying to win her this huge E.T. doll (you remember, E.T. phone home?) by tossing softballs into a fruit basket set at an angle. He very quickly was up to $800 and needed to double that amount to try again or to walk away with a $800 loss. By this time a fairly large crowd had gathered to watch when a NY cop stops to see what is going on. The guy with the blond is sweating bullets trying to decide what to do when the cop walks up and asks the carnie to see his permit. The carnie doesn't have one so the cop makes him give the guy his money back. I think most of the crowd were upset at the cop for stopping it.
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I saw something similar in Vegas a year ago.
I always thought those guys with a foldup table doing the "shell game" were only in the movies, but they were really doing it on the sidewalk in Vegas, right on the strip (it was on one of the bridges connecting 2 of the huge hotels).
These were fairly high dollar games, I think $100 per bet, the guy has 3 cups and a ball and moves them around quickly and if you guess which one, you win. He does the shuffle first, while everyone is watching, and then asks for bets. Lots of people were stepping up with $100s.
It moves very quickly and hundreds are lost or won in a few seconds.
I'm assuming they have plants in the crowd that "win," but if so, these guys were pretty convincing. Overall, the shell guy seemed to win more than he lost, but he lost quite a few times, too.
It was actually probably the most entertaining thing I saw there all weekend.