Three Card Monte is a card game that involves following one red card mixed among two black cards, impossibly. The trick involves placing a red queen and two black cards in a row on a table, with the ace in the middle. The player must follow the queen and flip the cards face-down.
To play Three Card Monte, one must first prepare any card and follow the steps below:
- Learn how to take cards so that only two appear by stacking three.
- Place free cards face down on a table, usually a cardboard box, as it provides a good surface for playing.
- Bend the cards by stacking them.
- Drop the cards by mastering and throwing them.
- Master the throw by holding two cards in one hand and one in the other.
- Toss the lower right hand card onto the table, then the sucker must guess which of the three cards is the odd one out. If they succeed, they double their money. Fail, and the money is gone.
The trick begins with showing the red card and throwing it to the tabletop. The dealer then mixes up the cards, but the player must keep their eye on the red card. This trick is one of the oldest scams in the city and can be found on the official app.
📹 3 Card Monte ~ An In-Depth Tutorial
Scam (scam) 1. a dishonest scheme, swindle. #magic #tutorial #tricks.
📹 Three Card Monte Scam Explained!
The Three Card Monte is a scam that has been done on the streets of New York and Las Vegas for decades. This video teaches …
I’m sorry I’m two years too late in saying this, but I love everything about this article. The routine is awesome, the presentation is perfect, and the tutorial is super well explained. Plus I’m glad you showed how to do a double lift. Believe it or not, I cannot do a proper double lift. But I’ll practice super hard just to be able to perform this trick. Thanks for the article and for helping me out.
Thank you everyone for over 1 million views! “What if they say a different location?”… Here is the answer by user (youschtube)… “The patter isn’t interactive with the audience! He isn’t asking anyone to guess, then waiting for the answer. The patter simply accompanies the actions, like a story. The way we heard it on the article is Exactly the way you tell it. You don’t ask the specs the questions for real. ..it is just talk to create a story and effectively do the trick with.”
Thank you– a great, generous post. ..I always thought the “broadtossing” way of 3 card monte (as done on the streets, with the deceptive toss) was the superior monte version– nothing came close, except that it was designed as a scam and has never been well adapted for performance purposes. This is better, plus you have good patter., It didn’t take me too long to learn the second sleight whereby you represent the bottom card as the top (your invention)? I will enjoy practicing the routine as I watch “A Big Hand for a LIttle Lady” (one of my top five Poker movies). Best
Thank you for this tutorial! I’ve been trying to learn it myself. I use an ace and two others, lay them all out, and then mix them, and have my audience (quote unquote) try and guess. Then I say, “okay I’ll make this easier. I’m gonna take out one of not- ace cards. Then, using sleight of hand, I make it look like I took out a not-ace card, but actually I take out the ace. THIS TUTORIAL VERSION IS MUCH BETTER
Hi Tom, Thnx for this amazing routine. It’s very powerful, you perform it a wonderful way and the story is funny. I like it all very much. Though, something bothers me : Top Slide (1:25 and 8:42 in the article) may seem strange from the spectator’s point of view. He could wonder why we show the “top” card this weird way instead of just lifting it as usual. When perusal your performance, I couldn’t figure out what you were doing, but I felt there was a kind of sleight of hand at this very moment. Have you any improvement in sight ? Thnx again :-))
Saw this on the streets of Philadelphia as a young kid in the late 70s – couldn’t figure out what these guys who looked like they were playing cards with only 3 cards on an overturned cardboard box were doing – and then they would fold up the box and run off in separate directions. My old man explained to me what it was after I asked him why they were playing blackjack on a cardboard box using the same 3 cards every time.
I’ve seen some advance techniques used before on the streets. In one of them one of the back of the cars was obviously marked with a bent corner that peeled back looking like the card was split and out and you could see white. It was super obvious. But when someone would make a bet they would lose. In Paris lots of guys would do this, but it was obvious to me that he would have accomplices. I think people said they were from Romania, they had quite an accent. His accomplices made bets and would win and win again. They were waiting for some sucker to make a bet.
The packet trick (color monte, your second version) is much better IMHO that has cards with shiny colored diamonds on it and the hidden one that says “you owe me $14”. With only 3 cards, the double lift is MUCH easier, hardly even requires practice. Also, there are variations of that slide move because it just screams that you are up to something because it is so unnatural.
What size are your cards, just bought some Bicycle supposed standard sized of Amazon and they are wider than I’m used to being in UK. They’re 2.5″ or 63.5mm whereas any cards I’ve had bought locally in the past are not as wide being 2.25″ or 57mm wide and I think slightly shorter as well, maybe only 1mm! Also they are linen finished and very slidey, not happy with them at all!
Neat. Nice and clean. Three Card Monty is a name that’s been around for as long as I can remember but I didn’t realize that I’ve known this trick for over 20 years now. When I was at app state in the early 90s, there was a man named George Vaughan who was a retired stage magician that had a magic shop near Tweetsie railroad that was called the Scorpions Den. I bought this from him and learned it, but we had always called it “Probably, Definitely”. It started with, “This card is Probably not your card… and this card is also probably not your card… But this card is DEFINITELY not your card.” The cards had regular Bicycle backs but the faces were white except the script “This is PROBABLY not your card” highlighted in yellow, “This is DEFINITELY not your card” highlighted in red, and the last one of course “This IS you card!” highlighted in green. It was a wonderful trick but I never thought to use regular cards. 😂 Wonderfully done! Thank you!!
I love Color Monte and your presentation was dead on. It has a great script. The original script does start “a man walked up to me and said ‘How’d you like to make some money?'” I then am demonstrating how I got taken. Your presentation turns it around and then you become the bad guy. The double lift can reveal the second. I usually do it with thumb and forefinger at the edges. Not as elegant as a real double lift. The Color Monte cards are easy to follow and the reveal at the end (You owe me $14), I think, is more fun. Worth the $7 or so.
The street scam only works if you can suck people in to putting down cash to play. If everyone assumes it’s a losing trick they’d never play. So first scam is to play it with a shill using a poorly executed different version that the some of the audience can clearly see. Shill calls the WRONG card and loses. This makes the ‘smarter’ one perusal think “I see what he’s DOING… I can BEAT this!” to become a willing sucker. THEN the REAL trick version is played. Truly stupid people don’t play. Only those thinking they’re smarter lay down cash. ‘Smart’ people make the best marks.
I’ve performed Color Monte this way for many, many years. I actually suggest buying a copy of Color Monte, then discarding the two colored diamond cards. Keep the $14 card and use a Joker and Ace of Spades as Tom does. Then, you can use the same “you owe me a dollar” patter, concluding with the double or nothing offer like the original routine. I find this has more punch than the original Color Monte or using three standard cards from the deck (although I’ll use Tom’s method as an impromptu option if I don’t have a $14 card with me 🙂 ).
Oh I absolutely love this game because I win it every single time. And I do mean every single time. Not only do I win I absolutely love increasing the bed tremendously. And I’m not talking increasing the bed by $10 or $15 or even $20 or $25. I’m not even talking $100. I’m talking a minimum of $500. $1000 $1500 $2500 and what really makes them run packs up their table and leave is when I say double or nothing $5000.
Another way you cannot win at this game if you play it on the street of a big city is that the guy running it will signal to a shill if a player guesses right. The shill then yells “Cop!” and the scammer grabs up the money (and maybe the cards) and runs away down the street somewhere. Of course, there is no cop and the guesser never gets paid. And yes, these guys are good enough to know where the money card is at all times. Remember–they do this and nothing but this for hours at a time.
I have two jokers 1) Double lift to show the joker on the “top” 2) Take one card off the top and set it down 3) Flip over the next card in your hand to show the joker. 4) Set it down on top of the trick card The last card is a money card 5) Show the money card If you can tell me where the money card is, I’ll give you a dollar 6) Place it down on the rest of the cards If you’re wrong, you owe me a dollar The ace is on the top 7) Single lift to show the money card is on top 8) Take the top two cards and put them at the bottom If I put it on the bottom, where is the ace? He said “On the bottom” 9) Show the joker on the bottom Wrong “On the Top” 10) Two card lift, show the joker Wrong 11) Double lift to flip it over “It’s in the middle” 12) Spread the deck and show the joker in the middle (make sure you put it back in the middle) Wrong “You don’t have an ace” 13) Show the money card at the bottom Wrong *Tell them that if they can find a joker, they can win “One’s on the top” 14) Two card slide and show the money card Wrong 15) Double lift the flip the cards over “In the Middle” 16) Show the money card is in the middle “You don’t have three cards” 17) Count out your cards from the top Wrong 18) Lay the joker and the money card down *Have them guess what the last card is 19) Reveal the trick card
I live in Las Vegas, why do the Casinos allow what I am about to tell you, is beyond me. I saw a guy lose 4 thousand dollars to a street hustler during a three shell game. I wanted to stop the victim so badly, but the hustler had a partner as big as a mountain, who would have killed me, I am 70 years old. All of this took place in front of the Wynn hotel on their property. Back in the “old” days the hustler would have been taken to the “butt” kicking room, and believe me he would have left town for good. Today Casinos are corporate owned.
Was given two beautiful felt card mats the other day and it inspired me to really get going on the tricks again, to my amazement I have got this trick sorted, no where near as slick as the main man Tom Matriq but I am getting there. So thanks for the tutorial, well presented and it really helped my to finally figure it out. Really happy…
If you really look close and know that whenever he has the red queen in his hand and shows it to you and puts it on the table, he always puts down the black card instead. So if you follow the black card that was behind the queen, that’s always the right card. The one where he puts the queen away is pretty easy because you can just assume he put the queen away. I was able to get the queen every time just by making the assumption that the one he put down is the black card.
I know this will likely sound dumb but what happens if you don’t pick the correct card either? Instead choose what looks wrong but ends up being right? From the looks of it 3 card Monty is a lose / lose situation right? Only the dealer is any position to always win but what about that 1% chance something odd like this happens? Never been a gambler but always found all the tricks/illusions interesting. While the cards are definitely stacked against you, the odd 1% win chance is never accounted for because it’s just impossible I guess.
Next thing you know they will start having 3 Card Monty in the Olympics. Ever see those guys hanging around sidewalks and parks trying to con people out of money by finding the card they shuffled around? oime of them are oretty good at it, and it’s a “thing” in certain places, so it’s as valid as breakdancing I guess.
I used to see them do this a lot in the streets of NYC back in the Eighties. There would always be a guy who kept winning (because he was secretly in cahoots with the dealer)…once the other bystanders saw how easy it was, they had to try their luck – with not-so-good results. You had to put up the money in advance…needless to say, you weren’t getting it back even if you guessed the card correctly. They were basically two-bit scammers rather than magicians…I never saw one who actually knew the slight of hand shown here.