Nebor
Lifer
Alright, so here is the tale of Saturday night at Mardis Gras. My friend and I were wandering the streets with a nice buzz going. He had already lost his wallet with his credit cards\cash the night before, so I was funding the days revelry.
A sweet, tiger stuffed animal catches my eye in a Midway booth and we wander over to it. Being a naturally skeptical person, I asked him how much the tiger cost. He told me $50, or I could play to win for only $5 a roll. He then briefly explained the rules of his game, which in retrospect is a textbook version of "Razzle." He seemed to be running this with only 1 game board off to the side of the rest of his booth, which centered around a dart game. Again, in retrospect I see that that's because Razzle is pretty much illegal everywhere in the US.
Best Description, this is almost word for word how it went for us.
Another Link
A news report about it happening at Mardis Gras
Wikipedia
I immediately rejected the notion of playing his game on general principle. The game is meant to make you lose, this one was obviously intended to overwhelm you with confusing numbers, and I was not sober. So I produce $50 from my wallet, and tell him I'd like to buy the tiger. My friend balks and says he can just win the tiger. Now we're getting somewhere. The carny offers him a free roll to get started. He hands my friend a small tupperware container containing some odd stone marbles. I commented that they were pretty cool, and the carny said they were the originals that came with the board that his father had given him.
Anyway, so the game starts. The goal is to travel 100 miles. During the first few rolls, the carny intentionally miscounts your roll, in order to award you a lot of points early on. This succeeded in disarming my initial suspicion of both the speed with which he was adding the numbers, and the fact that he was picking up the marbles two at a time as he counted them, making a recount impossible. By the time the stakes get high, you don't want to look stupid by saying you can't count that fast, and you don't feel that you can question his trustworthiness because you DID score big to start with. My friend was pretty drunk, and kept throwing the marbles out of the box, and after the third time the carny said that if he did it again the game was over, that he didn't have any more marbles if we lost one.
Anyway, after a free roll, and then 3 rolls at $5 a piece, we were at about 90 miles. That's when we started winning "bonuses." There are three tiles on the conversion chart that are "bonuses" and they're all the numbers that you're statistically most likely to roll, something like 27, 28 and 29. When you hit them, the prizes for reaching 100 double, but your cost to play each roll also doubles and in this particular game there was an alternative cash prize that you could choose instead of stuffed animals, TVs and iPods. Suffice it to say, a lot of doubling took place, but mile increases stopped entirely at 98 miles. The entire time I'm telling my friend that he needs to just walk away, that he's not going to win, and the carny is telling him that all the prizes are paid for by people who just walk away. Even though I didn't understand why we weren't winning at that point, I knew that we couldn't win.
My friend said he'd write me a check for whatever he lost when we got home, so I shrugged and started doling out the cash. After losing a couple of $320 rolls and then hitting the "bonus" again, and having the cost per roll increase to $640, he finally had enough. He was ready to quit. I told the guy we were quitting, and asked him how much money we'd given him. He gave me some kind of smart ass reply like, "That moneys in my pocket now, I don't know anything about it." And I said, "come on dude, we're walking away, you've got the money, I just need to know how much for when he writes me a check tomorrow." He said, "About $1400." I said, "can I at least have the tiger?" "Sure," he said, "for $50."
While I was mildly upset that my friend had lost $1400, I was more upset by this guy being a dickhole at Mardis Gras and ruining my good time buzz. "Ok," I said, and grabbed his little container of marbles and walked off before the fatass could even start to come out from his booth. He yelled some stuff but I just kept walking, across a street and over to an ATM to replenish my cash supply. While I used the ATM, my friend took the marbles over to a garbage can filled with Mardis Gras nastiness (you can imagine) and sprinkled them in before giving the can a good shake. By the time I was done with the ATM, fat carny and his son, carny jr. had made their way over to us with a couple of police officers in tow. He pointed us out and the cops, exasperated said, "This *clears throat* gentleman says you stole his uh... marbles." My friend, still in his best drunken form, says, "I threw those fuckin' marbles in the trash can." The carny starts to huff and puff, and I add, "I'm sorry, I thought we won those. Your game was like, really confusing." The cops start laughing, the carny turns to them all pissed off and storms off shouting "This is bullshit!" The cops asked if we were alright, we said we were fine and they wished us a good night.
Feel free to ridicule me\us for losing the money to the carny. I fully realize he came out on the winning end of our encounter. But the next time I see a Razzle setup, I'll know what's going on, and that's worth, uh, something. Right? :whiste:
Cliffs:
Carny swindles two drunk guys out of $1,400
Drunk guys destroy key implement of his game, hindering future swindling
Cops, not a single fuck was given
A sweet, tiger stuffed animal catches my eye in a Midway booth and we wander over to it. Being a naturally skeptical person, I asked him how much the tiger cost. He told me $50, or I could play to win for only $5 a roll. He then briefly explained the rules of his game, which in retrospect is a textbook version of "Razzle." He seemed to be running this with only 1 game board off to the side of the rest of his booth, which centered around a dart game. Again, in retrospect I see that that's because Razzle is pretty much illegal everywhere in the US.
Best Description, this is almost word for word how it went for us.
Another Link
A news report about it happening at Mardis Gras
Wikipedia
I immediately rejected the notion of playing his game on general principle. The game is meant to make you lose, this one was obviously intended to overwhelm you with confusing numbers, and I was not sober. So I produce $50 from my wallet, and tell him I'd like to buy the tiger. My friend balks and says he can just win the tiger. Now we're getting somewhere. The carny offers him a free roll to get started. He hands my friend a small tupperware container containing some odd stone marbles. I commented that they were pretty cool, and the carny said they were the originals that came with the board that his father had given him.
Anyway, so the game starts. The goal is to travel 100 miles. During the first few rolls, the carny intentionally miscounts your roll, in order to award you a lot of points early on. This succeeded in disarming my initial suspicion of both the speed with which he was adding the numbers, and the fact that he was picking up the marbles two at a time as he counted them, making a recount impossible. By the time the stakes get high, you don't want to look stupid by saying you can't count that fast, and you don't feel that you can question his trustworthiness because you DID score big to start with. My friend was pretty drunk, and kept throwing the marbles out of the box, and after the third time the carny said that if he did it again the game was over, that he didn't have any more marbles if we lost one.
Anyway, after a free roll, and then 3 rolls at $5 a piece, we were at about 90 miles. That's when we started winning "bonuses." There are three tiles on the conversion chart that are "bonuses" and they're all the numbers that you're statistically most likely to roll, something like 27, 28 and 29. When you hit them, the prizes for reaching 100 double, but your cost to play each roll also doubles and in this particular game there was an alternative cash prize that you could choose instead of stuffed animals, TVs and iPods. Suffice it to say, a lot of doubling took place, but mile increases stopped entirely at 98 miles. The entire time I'm telling my friend that he needs to just walk away, that he's not going to win, and the carny is telling him that all the prizes are paid for by people who just walk away. Even though I didn't understand why we weren't winning at that point, I knew that we couldn't win.
My friend said he'd write me a check for whatever he lost when we got home, so I shrugged and started doling out the cash. After losing a couple of $320 rolls and then hitting the "bonus" again, and having the cost per roll increase to $640, he finally had enough. He was ready to quit. I told the guy we were quitting, and asked him how much money we'd given him. He gave me some kind of smart ass reply like, "That moneys in my pocket now, I don't know anything about it." And I said, "come on dude, we're walking away, you've got the money, I just need to know how much for when he writes me a check tomorrow." He said, "About $1400." I said, "can I at least have the tiger?" "Sure," he said, "for $50."
While I was mildly upset that my friend had lost $1400, I was more upset by this guy being a dickhole at Mardis Gras and ruining my good time buzz. "Ok," I said, and grabbed his little container of marbles and walked off before the fatass could even start to come out from his booth. He yelled some stuff but I just kept walking, across a street and over to an ATM to replenish my cash supply. While I used the ATM, my friend took the marbles over to a garbage can filled with Mardis Gras nastiness (you can imagine) and sprinkled them in before giving the can a good shake. By the time I was done with the ATM, fat carny and his son, carny jr. had made their way over to us with a couple of police officers in tow. He pointed us out and the cops, exasperated said, "This *clears throat* gentleman says you stole his uh... marbles." My friend, still in his best drunken form, says, "I threw those fuckin' marbles in the trash can." The carny starts to huff and puff, and I add, "I'm sorry, I thought we won those. Your game was like, really confusing." The cops start laughing, the carny turns to them all pissed off and storms off shouting "This is bullshit!" The cops asked if we were alright, we said we were fine and they wished us a good night.
Feel free to ridicule me\us for losing the money to the carny. I fully realize he came out on the winning end of our encounter. But the next time I see a Razzle setup, I'll know what's going on, and that's worth, uh, something. Right? :whiste:
Cliffs:
Carny swindles two drunk guys out of $1,400
Drunk guys destroy key implement of his game, hindering future swindling
Cops, not a single fuck was given
