The Monte Scam

14-12-2008


So, during my seasonal stroll around the city doing christmas shopping (which always seems to involve people walking into me. See my post last year about idiots not noticing the lumbering giant) I went down Henry Street and spotted something I had never seen in the city before.

I saw this on a show on the idiot box before. It's a street scam. The show explained how the guy moving the cards had a team of people involved and at the end of the day only one person in the crowd was the "mark" and the rest were all in on it.

This one in the city was being performed by two Romanians and from the looks of them they had just figured out how to pull the scam off. On the show there was no clear indication that anyone in the crowd was in on the act. In town there was one guy dealing the discs and his partner standing right beside him like a sore thumb. Anybody who didn't think they were up to something was bordering on brain dead.

Anyway I watched it for a while, the dealer kept trying to get me to bet but I just smiled and shook my head. Then I took a look around the crowd at those that had won and lost and after five minutes had my fill of entertainment and left. Roughly twenty minutes later I was walking back down the street and the game had moved place. They were there, dealing away, and this is when the total recall of the jester came into effect.

EVERYONE bar one person in the crowd were exactly the same as before. One of the guys made eye contact with me as I walked past. I stopped, looked at me, and tapped my head in the "I Know" way people use.

If there had of been a garda nearby I would have dragged him over straight away. Sadly there wasn't and the inside man started to point out to his fellow scammers that they had been made.

It was an interesting little side trip from the shopping I have to admit.

Blue_jester