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The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West
“Four cowboys were at an old saloon in Tombstone playing poker. A lot of money was at stake as the cards were dealt, and each was keeping a sharp eye on the other. As one of the players called the hand and laid out his cards, another one stood up in amazement. ‘Hey, George is cheatin’. He ain’t playin’ the cards I dealt him.’ ”
An attractive, statuesque woman with golden blonde curls piled high on top of her head sat behind a large table in the back of the Pacific Club Gambling Parlor in San Francisco, California. She shuffled a deck of cards with great ease and gently dealt a hand to the four players surrounding her. A Saturday evening rainstorm had driven placer miners and unemployed farmhands to the saloon to try their luck at a game of poker. The dealer was a skilled gambler who had learned her trade on a Mississippi riverboat. She was an expert at luring proud men into a card game and then helping them part with the chunks of gold they’d earned.
The life of a professional gambler was unsettling and speculative. Most gamblers rode the circuit with the seasons. In the summer the big play was in the northern mining camps, and during the winter the southern towns provided the richest activity. Women gamblers were a rarity, and the most successful lady gamblers possessed stunning good looks, which helped disarm aggressive opponents and gave them something pretty to look at as they lost their money.
To learn more about intrepid women gamblers read
The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West
