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faro

Gambling card game played between a banker and several players.

A 17th-century game of French origin and a descendant of basset, it is also known as Pharo, Pharoah or Pharaon. A popular game in the American West for it's ease of play and fast action, it was also notorious for being rigged.[1]

Escape to Tampico: In 1876, Steve Corbett began offering faro as a casino game in his La Cantina American in Tampico, Mexico.[3]

According to Hoyle: In October[4] 1876, Bret Maverick traveled to Wagon Wheel, Wyoming Territory, to set up an honest casino and put the crooked Joe Riggs and his brace joint, the Golden Bucket Saloon, out of business. Just after proving Riggs was using marked cards at his black jack table, Bret called attention to the faro game. Before he could investigate, Riggs and his boys had drawn guns on Bret and Big Mike McComb. The threat was enough to convince the customers that all the games in the Golden Bucket were rigged, so they smashed the saloon to bits, putting Riggs permanently out of business in Wagon Wheel.[5]

Stampede: In April of 1877,[4] Bret Maverick met Coral Stacey aboard the Dakota Queen, bound up the Missouri River[6] for Fort Pierre.[2] After winning a game of poker with Tony Cadiz, Coral approached Bret on the deck and suggested they team up in Deadwood, as she was a dealer in faro and blackjack. Before Bret could answer, he was knocked out, robbed, and thrown overboard into the river.[6]