Fast and Loose is a cheating game played at fairs by sharpers. It is also known as Pricking the Garter (Renaissance), The Strap (1930 con man argot), The Old Army Game (World War II), The Australian Belt, and Pricking at the Belt.
In older periods, the leather or cloth webbing garters that men used to hold their stockings up around their thighs were used in this game, later the cloth webbing belts like those used by soldiers were popular.
Whatever the form, the game is played the same.
A strap, usually in the form of a belt, is folded in half by the street hustler or mountebank, and then wound into a coil, forming two identical loops in the center of the coil—one the folded center of the strap, and the other its first fold.
These loops look identical.
The scam artist challenges a spectator to place a stick in the true center loop — the one that holds Fast to the stick when the two ends of the strap are pulled. If the operator pulled and the strap came "loose," the spectator lost his bet. Since the operator could secretly change how the two ends are pulled away, he could always win. Shills would help encourage others to play, make it look possible to win, and give "advice" to the "marks" who tried to win. By winning, the shills encourage others to try — "It's easy, if you know how to spot it."
At one time a popular scam, it was much practised by Gypsies, a circumstance alluded to by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra (iv. 12):
"Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose, Beguiled me to the very heart of loss."
Shakespeare also mentions "Fast and Loose" in "King John" and in "Love's Labors Lost."
This phrase is often attributed to Shakespeare, but according to the OED, first appears as the title of an epigram in a popular miscellany from 1557.
The colloquial expression to "play fast and loose" — to act or live recklessly or thoughtlessly — has come into our common usage from Shakespeare.
Sometime in the 18th or 19th century, the scam was resurrected with a new method — one which used a continuous loop of string.
The scam artists who worked the docks would often play this con on a barrel top for the sailors. This new version of the game was called "On the Barrelhead," from the phrase, “Put your money on the Barrelhead.” It was also known as "The Figure Eight" and later as "The Endless Chain."
Two or more loops are formed within the circle of a string (see figure below). The spectator bets on which loop will hold Fast.
In this version, it doesn’t matter in what manner the string is picked up. Instead, the important thing is the method used to lay it out. Laid out in one pattern, one of the loops holds "fast." Laid out in what looked like an identical pattern, none of the loops would hold "fast" — the victims cannot win.
Since both the belt style games and the endless string and loop games are so similar, Fast and Loose is often used as a general term for this kind of game.
Famous quotes containing the words fast and/or loose:
“We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an intellectual man. But in his presence our own mind is roused to activity, and we forget very fast what he says.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Her little loose hands, and dropping Victorian shoulders.
And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly
With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and straggle of a
long thin ear, like ribbon,
Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin little dangle
of an immature paw, and one thin ear.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)