The banker uses a table, typically covered in green cloth. Players buy chips from the banker in order to place bets during the game. Its origins can be traced back to as early as the 15th century. It’s believed to have originated in France sometime in the late 17th century and was called “Pharaon.” As it passed through western Europe its name changed to Pharo in England, once it arrived in the United States its name was converted to Faro.įaro is a derivative of the game Bassetta, which was brought to Paris from Italy in the early 17th century. This gambling game was extremely popular in the American Wild West and the gold rush, today Faro is a lesser known and enjoyed game, having gone out of style in the 1950s. MATERIALS: 52-card deck, betting chips, coppers (pennies), case-keeper, dealer box (optional) It uses material from the Wikipedia.OBJECTIVE OF FARO: Place winning bets on cards to receive a payout each turn. This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Howard, M. The Traditional Game of faro Barbary Coast Vigilance Committee.

In the film The Sting, it is said that the gangster (and intended “mark”) Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) only plays faro when he goes out to casinos, and then only by himself.

Scenes involving the game of faro (with varying degrees of accuracy) appear in the Hollywood movies Wyatt Earp, starring Kevin Costner, and Tombstone, starring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.

Faro is played by characters in saloons on the HBO series “Deadwood”.

Literary fictionįaro is the game played in Aleksandr Pushkin’s short story The Queen of Spades.įaro is also played in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. Its name is believed to be a corruption of pharaoh, and refers to the Egyptian motif that commonly adorned French-made playing cards of the period.Faro is similar to the contemporary game of Mini-Baccarat. It has since fallen completely out of fashion and is only practiced by dedicated Old West enthusiasts and Civil War re-enactors. It enjoyed great popularity during the 18th century, particularly in England and France, and in the 19th Century in the United States, particularly on the American Frontier, where it was practiced by ‘faro dealers’ such as the infamous Doc Holliday. Faro is a card game, a descendant of Basset.

Old west faro card game