George Devol,Famous Casino Cheater

Dreams come true

George Devol was born in Ohio in 1829 and has been known as one of the greatest cheaters in poker. George learnt different card and dice games when he was only a boy and he even learnt a lot of cheating techniques at a very young age. His dream was to become a professional gambler.

At the age of 14 George Devol could deal seconds, stack a deck like he preferred, recover cuts and even palm cards. Devol went to Texas in 1884 at the time of war where he cheated all the soldiers. He could cheat at roulette and Keno too, but his forte had been poker and his favorite move was Monte. He had teamed up with several well known cheaters over the years like Canada Bill Jones and others. He paid the bartenders, provided money to several insiders and continued cheating.

Tough guy

Devol had been proud of his cheating skills and thought that there was nothing wrong at casino cheating . He often looked down on opponents who could not even sneak at someone else's cards. He used to have his own special deck of cards which had been marked and he used to pay the insiders well to introduce them in the game. He was known for carrying a pistol with him at all times moreover he did not hesitate to use.

Over the years he had successfully cheated people with thousands of dollars and in certain cases he used to take slaves from his victims who had no money to pay him. At one point of time George Devol had even successfully cheated a minister and had taken the contribution of the congregation as a reward for himself. The story had been proudly told later to many of his friends and acquaintances. On one such cruise he even won alligators from a circus man along with all him money.

Achievements

According to various estimates, Devol had managed to earn more than $2 million during the years that he was a riverboat gambler. However, towards the end of his career he was not left with much money. When the railroads were introduced in the 1880s, the riverboats had experienced a set back and so had Devol's career. In 1896 he gave up cheating and wrote a book called Forty years a gambler on the Mississippi Gambler. He tried to sell his book and died in 1903 while he was trying to make money by selling his memoir.

George Devol is known to be one of the greatest known and the earliest cheaters in the history of card games, especially in poker.