When faro reigned as king

Signs along Highway 341 to Virginia City have tempted visitors for years to come "See The Suicide Table At the Delta Saloon."

This colorful relic from Nevada's past has become the recipient of unkind innuendoes and half truths.

First, the suicide table has never been used by Dr. Jack Kevorkian to dispatch his patients into the hereafter. Second, the last time any deadly business was conducted on the table was more than a century ago when high-stakes gambling on a faro table could sometimes turn lethal, for the "Suicide Table" is nothing more than a faro table.

Legend has it that three former owners of the table lost their entire fortunes banking a faro game, and in desperation killed themselves when all was hopelessly lost. For many years, the table sat in the old Sawdust Corner Saloon at the corner of C & Union streets until the early 1960s, when it found a new home at the Delta Saloon, where it is today.

The Suicide Table has been featured many times in magazine and newspaper articles and was the star attraction on TV's "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" when Jack Palance did a segment on it in 1984. Today, the table is still entertaining visitors to Virginia City who read about its amazing past.

Faro can be traced back 300 years to the French court of King Louis XIV, and later to England, where it became a popular card game. It was given the name "faro" because it sounded like "pharaoh," the title of an Egyptian king that was printed on one of the honor cards in the deck.

The game migrated to America sometime after 1800, and quickly spread westward. A faro bank could be found in every saloon and gambling parlor in cow towns and mining camps throughout the country.

Some of the most famous names in Western folklore operated faro banks. Wyatt Earp ran a faro table at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone, Ariz., and years later was dealing faro In Tonopah during the town's boom years in the early part of the 20th century.

Faro, also known as"bucking the tiger," was popular because the house held only a tiny percentage in the game. As the game progressed, the odds would shift in favor of the player, causing some dealers to cheat in order to maintain their edge. Another advantage the player had was the abacus-like device used by a "casekeeper," who sat across from the dealer and kept track of the cards played.

The first card out of the dealer's box was called a soda; the last card, a hock. Players did not touch the cards, but placed their bets on a layout on the table where all 13 cards were represented. The suit was irrelevant; you simply bet on one of the 13 cards to either win or lose. If you wanted a card to lose, you placed a penny on your stack of chips. This was called"coppering," an indication that you wanted the card to lose.

Big bets were usually made toward the end of the game when the players knew what cards remained in the deck. There was also a special bet at the end that paid 4:1 odds if a player could predict the exact order of the last three cards dealt. The house usually won the majority of these bets

When Nevada legalized gambling again in 1931, faro games could still be found throughout the state, but the game was losing its popularity. By the mid-1950s, fewer then a half dozen games remained in the state.

Today no faro is found in Nevada, and the reason for that is the odds. Today's best bets for players on table games are blackjack and craps. Blackjack has a house percentage of 3 percent, and craps 1.5 percent, but faro was even less than that, And when was the last time you were allowed to use a device in a casino to count cards?

A faro game today would probably give casino owners many sleepless nights, wondering if they had a casino to come back to in the morning.

It's probably best that faro be kept to the history books and, like the Suicide Table, remind us of the time when gamblers got an even break -- when faro was king.

IF YOU GO

What: "The Suicide Table"

When: 8 a.m.-10:30 p.m. daily

Where: Delta Saloon, 18 S. C St., Virginia City

Admission: Free