three-card monte

English

A typical street setup for three-card monte

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

three-card monte (usually uncountable, plural three-card montes)

1. A confidence game in which the victim, or mark, is tricked into betting a sum of money that they can find the money card, for example the queen of hearts, among three face-down playing cards.
   • 2022 October 5, Michael Paulson, “Suzan-Lori Parks Is on Broadway, Off Broadway and Everywhere Else”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     A starry 20th-anniversary revival of “Topdog/Underdog,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning fable about two brothers, three-card monte and one troubling inheritance, is in previews on Broadway.

Synonyms

• (confidence game): three-card marney, three-card trick, three-way, three-card shuffle, menage-a-card, triplets, follow the lady, find the lady, follow the bee

Translations

confidence trick

• French: bonneteau (fr) m
• German: Kümmelblättchen (de) n

See also

• shell game
• tosser

References

• three-card monte on Wikipedia.Wikipedia