Legerdemain & Quick Gun

PLAY THE DEVIL: A HISTORY OF GAMBLING IN THE U.S. (475 pp.)--Henry Chafetz--Clarkson N. Potter ($7.50).

With the dependability of a two-faced coin or a doctored roulette wheel, Americans each year lose between $20 billion and $30 billion on gambling--but they never lose interest. The lure of winnings without work is so powerful that neither moral censure, nor restrictive legislation, nor the tears of race-track widows--let alone mere losses--has ever been able to dampen it. Gambling has bred crime and corruption; it has also financed wars, built schools and churches, and, on Wall Street, produced something called People's Capitalism. "Gambling," a congressional committee once said, "is the lifeblood of the nation."

As Toynbee views history in terms of religion, or the Marxists in terms of class conflict, Manhattan Book Dealer Henry ("Chip") Chafetz views it in terms of Lady Chance. How did an Indian squaw pick her brave? By how good a gambler he was; otherwise she and the kids might find themselves the pawns of a sharper peach-stone roller. What did Thomas Jefferson meditate on while composing the Declaration of Independence? His losses at backgammon, cards and lotto. Who caused the Great Chicago Fire? Not Mrs. O'Leary's cow but Mrs. O'Leary's crap-shooting son, who was rolling the bones in the barn when an opponent rolled over a lantern.

Madame Mustache. In this unique view of history, it was the gambler's restlessness that helped push America westward, his flamboyant character that gave luster to frontier individualism, and his legerdemain and quick gun that often forced the coming of law and order. Gambling has also produced some of the most colorful characters in American history. There was Dr. Bennett, a riverboat gambler who invented thimblerig (which one has the pea?) and could still outwit the best of them at 70; Elijah Skagg, who became a millionaire by training youths in his shady science and sending them across the country in teams. There was Madame Mustache of Nevada City, Calif., who ran a square game with free champagne for all, made men remove their hats when gambling, and forbade them to brawl or use naughty language; and Richard Albert Canfield, the biggest single gambler of them all, who rose from a $2-a-week shipping clerk to owner of the Saratoga Club, one of the world's biggest and most lavish gambling houses, became a top collector of Whistler paintings (including a portrait of Canfield that Whistler called His Reverence).

$1,000 a Fly. America's gambling fever has never been confined to games of chance. After the 1794 yellow fever epidemic, bets were made on the number of the dead. Bettors so pressured steamboat captains to race one another that passengers bribed, pleaded and fought for berths farthest away from the boilers. "Bet-a-Million" Gates, who would bet on anything, used to moisten a lump of sugar and bet $1,000 a fly on how many flies would alight on it. In 1944, General Eisenhower bet -L-5 that his troops would reach the German border by Christmas--but lost. Al Capone, a madman at gambling, drew the line only at the stock market. Said he: "It's a racket."

In zeal, American gamblers have had to bow to only one faction: the reformers. Despite brief flurries of success, reformers have never got far. Jonathan F. Green, "The Reformed Gambler," sparked an antigambling drive in the 19th century and made more money on it than he had on gambling. He was so popular that he often put on three or four shows a night exposing gambling tricks. No one illustrated better what the reformers are up against than a North Carolina gambler named--naturally--Pittsburgh Phil. When the doctor told him that he had only 24 hours to live, Pittsburgh Phil bet him $10,000 that he would live longer. Each put a check by the bed. Just 24 hours later, Pittsburgh Phil reached over, clutched both checks, and died--with a smile on his lips.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.