Chips (called 'checks') were purchased by the punter from the banker (or house) from which the game originated. One person was designated a 'banker' and an indeterminate number of players could be admitted. It was played with an entire deck of playing cards. RulesĪ game of faro was often called a 'faro bank'. Also the Irish Brigade served in France and may have brought the term with them. It could have been brought to England and France through the mass emigration from Ireland, in particular in the aftermath of the Flight of the Wild Geese. Another idea traces the name to the Irish word fairadh, pronounced 'fearoo', meaning 'to turn'. Historians have suggested that the name Pharaon comes from Louis XIV's royal gamblers who called the game pharaon because of the motif that commonly adorned one of the French-made court cards.

While the game became scarce after World War II, it continued to be played at a few Las Vegas and Reno casinos through 1985. Cheating was prevalent enough that editions of Hoyle’s Rules of Games began their faro section warning readers that not a single honest faro bank could be found in the United States. Crooked faro equipment was so popular that many sporting-house companies began to supply gaffed dealing boxes specially designed so that the bankers could cheat their players. įaro's detractors regarded it as a dangerous scam that destroyed families and reduced men to poverty because of rampant rigging of the dealing box. Also called 'Bucking the Tiger', which comes from early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal Tiger, it was played in almost every gambling hall in the Old West from 1825 to 1915.

With its name shortened to faro, it soon spread to the United States in the 19th century to become the most widespread and popularly favored gambling game. Pharo, the English alternate spelling of Pharaoh, was easy to learn, quick and, when played honestly, the odds for a player were the best of all gambling games, as records Gilly Williams in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752. Pharaoh and basset, the most popular card games of 18th and 19th century Europe, were forbidden in France during the reign of Louis XIV on severe penalties, but these games continued to be widely played in England during the 18th century. The earliest references to a card game named pharaon are found in Southwestern France in the late 17th century (1688) during the reign of Louis XIV.

Faro card game