But when the pleasure becomes a business, and
a matter of mere gain, there is more innocence, perhaps, in a
perfect equality of antagonists--which games of chance, fairly
played, always secure--than where one party is likely to be an
overmatch for the other by his superior knowledge or ability.
Nevertheless, even games of chance may be artfully managed; and
the most apparently casual throw of the dice be made subservient
to the purposes of chicanery and fraud, as will be shown in the
sequel.
In the matter of skill and chance the nature of cards is mixed,--
most games having in them both elements of interest,--since the
success of the player must depend as much on the chance of the
'deal' as on his skill in playing the game. But even the chance
of the deal is liable to be perverted by all the tricks of
shuffling and cutting--not to mention how the honourable player
may be deceived in a thousand ways by the craft of the sharper,
during the playing, of the cards themselves; consequently
professed gamblers of all denominations, whether their games be
of apparent skill or mere chance, may be confounded together or
considered in the same category, as being equally meritorious and
equally infamous.
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