The city’s status as an international port and its thriving gambling industry created a new profession called the card “sharper.” Dozens of imitators soon followed, making the gaming dens the primary attraction of New Orleans. Davis also made certain that painted ladies were never far away. The club, open 24 hours a day, provided gourmet food, liquor, roulette wheels, Faro tables, poker, and other games. John Davis opened the first American gambling casino in New Orleans around 1822. New Orleans evolved as America’s first gambling city as riverboat men, plantation owners, and farmers avidly pursued the betting sport.

This old poker game was similar to the “draw poker” game today. Poker in the United States was first widely played in New Orleans by French settlers playing a card game that involved bluffing and betting called Poque in the early 1800s. In all likelihood, the game derived from elements of various gambling diversions that have been around from the beginning of time. Others are of the opinion that it was invented by the Chinese in 900 A.D. Played with a 25-card deck containing five suits, the rules were similar to today’s Five Card Stud. The exact origin of poker is unknown, but many have speculated that it originated from the 16th-century Persian card game called As Nas. In the old west towns of Deadwood, Dodge City, Tombstone, and Virginia City, gamblers played with their back to the wall and their guns at their sides, as dealers dealt games with names such as Chuck-A-Luck, Three Card Monte, High Dice, and Faro, by far the favorite in the wild west saloons. In the days of the frontier west, poker was king with the mustachioed likes of Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holliday, “ Canada” Bill Jones, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and hundreds of others. Whether on a riverboat atop the Mighty Mississippi River or in the smoky dimness of a mining camp saloon, a lucky draw could turn a broken man into a winner.

Depiction of Faro in Tonopah, Nevada, in 1905

How to play faro card game