Gambling
Both the illegal and legal gambling industries often use shills to make winning at games appear more likely than it actually is. For example, illegal Three-card Monte and Shell game peddlers are notorious employers of shills. These shills also often aid in cheating, disrupting the game if the mark is likely to win. In a legal casino, however, a shill is sometimes a gambler who plays using the casino's money in order to keep games (especially poker) going when there are not enough players. The title of Earle Stanley Gardner's mystery novel Shills Can't Cash Chips is derived from this type of shill. This is different from proposition players who are paid a salary by the casino for the same purpose, but bet with their own money.
Read more about this topic: Shill
Famous quotes containing the word gambling:
“As Jerome expanded, its chances for the title, “the toughest little town in the West,” increased and when it was incorporated in 1899 the citizens were able to support the claim by pointing to the number of thick stone shutters on the fronts of all saloons, gambling halls, and other places of business for protection against gunfire.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“At the gambling table, there are no fathers and sons.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Someone once asked me why women don’t gamble as much as men do, and I gave the common-sensical reply that we don’t have as much money. That was a true but incomplete answer. In fact, women’s total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)