Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/713

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ing monte. Lansquenet is dealt with cards, generally out of a faro box, or sardine box, as it is called. Rondo is played upon a billiard table with eight small balls, each ball about the size of a quail's egg, or somewhat larger, and depends upon the skill of the banker, or his substitute, in rolling an even number of balls into a pocket. If an odd number enters the pocket, it is called culo, and the banker loses; if an even number of balls be pocketed, it is called rondo, and the banker wins. On each winning the stake is doubled. As, for instance, if the banker commences with a half dollar and makes a rondo, he has a dollar m bank; on a second winning he would have two dollars in bank, and so on, doubling the stake at each winning, unless he sees proper to draw out a portion of his capital, which he can do whenever he pleases. After each second winning the table or gamekeeper draws out one half of the original amount invested, as a percentage. This is the game of rondo.

  • ' Justice Jenks of Sacramento, in an elaborate opinion, defines a banking game as signifying one in which the manager or conductor not only receives the stakes, but also on his own part makes a bank against them; that is, when the conductor stakes his own funds against the stakes of all others who participate in the game.

" Webster defines a bank to be a collection or stock of money deposited by a number of persons for a particular use, that is, an aggregate of particulars, or a fund that is a joint fund; the place where a collection of money is deposited, etc. Justice Jenks, in commenting upon this definition of a bank, says: ' It is not necessary that the conductor or manager of the game should own part of the money. It is sufficient that a fund is raised, and by any device whatever, that fund, or any part of it, changes hands by chance or by skill in playing. The learned justice further remarks, that in playing rondo two funds are raised, one against the other, and these funds are as much