As a gambler and con-artist, Alvin Clarence Thomas (1892-1974) spent most of his life courting and hustling ordinary folks and celebrities with the biggest and most elaborate con games he could conceive.

He was born in Rogers, a small town in the rural Arkansas countryside on November 30th. 1892 to Lee and Sarah, and performed his first con at the tender age of 7. Coveting the expensive fishing tackle owned by the men from the Big City, he would boast of his dog`s extraodinary ability to retrieve any rock thrown into the water. One sucker fell for the bet, a rock was marked with an "X" , thrown in to the pond, the dog dived in, swam to the bottom and with in a few seconds dropped the rock marked "X" at his masters feet. So Titanic won his first propostion bet. Of course the sucker was unaware of the method used by the boy and his best friend, the mutt wasn`t blessed with a unique talent, Titanic had placed hundreds of "X" marked rocks and stones on the bed of his local pond.

Thompson mastered many disciplines in the field of sport, notably- pistol and rifle shooting, horseshoes, pool, golf, even pitching pennies. When it came to hustling at poker, he was one of the best.

As every wise gambler will tell you, you need to find an edge, either by gamsmanship or outright skullduggery, and in the case of the latter, here`s one of his many triumphs. One night in Missouri, Titanic slipped away from his gambling friends at the dead of night and dug up a road sign marked "Joplin- 20 miles" and moved it 5 miles closer to town. The next day when he and his companions passed the road sign travelling towards town, Titanic felt he had a hunch that the sign that they had just passed may be wrong and that they were only 15 miles from Joplin. His victims put up and lost a $1000, when sure enough, the mileometer registered only 15 miles from the sign to the centre of town! A thousand dollars in the 1930s was more than the average man earned in a year.

All golfclubs in America are eilitist and racist institutions, the only blacks you see are carrying trays, so one can imagine in these establishments, that a man from the backwoods would be seen to be rather backward. Of course he exploited this ignorance and prejudice to it`s full advantage. Challenging these pompous republicans to a round and playing right handed, he would allow them to win the first few holes, thereby creating a false sense of security. After a dozen holes or so he would propose to play the rest of the round by playing with his weaker hand, for an increase in the bets. The suckers couldn`t refuse, but little did they know, Thompson was naturally left handed!

Titanic Thompson became immortalised on the big screen in the 1950s, when Damon Runyan`s writings were turned in to the musical `Guys and Dolls` and the part played by Marlon Brando, Sky Masterson was based on the great hustler.

There isn`t the room here to chronicle the life of this superstar, suffice to say, by the time he died in May 1974 at the age of 82, he had won and lost millions of dollars, had killed five men (usually in the protection of his bankroll) and married five times. For further reading, I would strongly recommend Carlton Stower`s excellent biography `The Unsinkable Titanic Thompson` published by Palmer Magic.

William Crockford

This is the true rags to riches story of a young man from the East End of London who, with the aid of a pair of dice, bankrupted 6 of England's greatest and wealthiest aristocratic families.

It is said, that man is a product of his environment, so lets take a peek into the world in which William Crockford was born in 1775. Running through Temple Bar (no longer there but around Fleet Street) was Fleet River which ran into Fleet Ditch, a cesspit clogged with sewage, offal and occasionally the bodies of dead children. South of the area stood Newgate Prison, where the sight of rotting bodies hanging from the gibbet was a daily occurrence. Crime was rife, theft was punishable by death, stealing and violence was for most , the only way to escape the dank and squalid hovels in which they attempted to raise their families.

Down the middle of Butchers Row ran open drains carrying the stench of horse and bollock manure; cattle were slaughtered, the butchers ran profitable side lines such as gut-spinning, tripe dressing, bone boiling, tallow melting and paunch cooking in open vats, the meat suspended for the flies to consume.

The earth in St. Paul's graveyard would sometimes open up to reveal the dead. The poor were buried either in shallow open graves or make shift boxes, the coffins would bulge and burst when the nauseous gases of putrification were emitted, in the dark, the faces of the dead could be glimpsed. Education was non existent. Hardly surprising, he grew up to be a person of harsh insensitivity and totally without sentiment.

Lets take a short walk down the aptly named The Strand, a thorough fare which connected the world of poverty and misery with the world of great opportunity and wealth, Mayfair. Lord Durham once remarked that a gentlemen could “jog along” on an income of £40,000 a year (enough to feed 6,500 poor families for the same period) What would forty grand buy you? A dozen liveried footmen, butlers, valets, grooms, ostlers, gardeners, coachmen, postilions, page boys, table boys, ladies maids, housemaids, washerwomen, cleaners, secretaries, chefs and often a negro slave – for a pet, and of course a mansion and land. It is this world the young Crockford dreamed of moving into.
Crockford learnt his apprenticeship in the gaming hells in London. He studied whist, cribbage, piquet and Hazard (the father of craps.) It was his ability to calculate the odds quicker and more accurately than his opponents that brought him enormous wealth. At the age of 20, this rather puggish and uncouth `cockney` saw his chance to change his life. Sitting in The Grapes public house in King Street, W1, a tavern frequented by wealthy merchant and tradesmen, a boastful braggart and renowned supplier of meats to the aristocracy would wile away his evenings challenging all to a game of cribbage, whilst bragging to all who would lend him an ear, of his travels around Europe. A snob. Crockford had found his sucker. For several nights, he studied the grocers game, looking for any weakness he could exploit before he made a challenge – a game of cribbage over 10,001 holes – for money of course. The stakes couldn't be higher, lose, and he would have been in huge debt to the Merchant, placed in the debtors prison in Clink Street to rot, and with The Thames liable to rise and flood on average twice a year, certain death. Win - a fortune and escape from a life of abject poverty.

So one night, in front of a crowd, the wealthy merchant looked upon this ugly oik, a boy of limited intellect and poor speech and took relish in giving this upstart a very expensive lesson. Crockford played a tight and aggressive game, placing his opponent on the back foot. His strategy began to work, the more his opponent lost, the more he ignored the odds and the greater he gambled to win back his money and save face. Sensing his enemy's panic, Crockford betted big to seize his main chance. The game lasted all night. The braggart could have cut his losses and walked but he was a stubborn fool. Crockford made his way back up The Strand that morning with a fortune of £1,700.
He invested his winnings into two business ventures, he spent half of his time as a bookmaker in Newmarket, the other half, he started his own gaming room at No. 5, King Street, W1. The next 25 years his wealth grew and grew, sometimes by nefarious means. Here are a few examples of the tricks of the trade employed by a bookmaker, the illegal ones. Bribing jockeys, delaying the start of the races to unnerve the horses, `boxing in` the favourites by racing 6 `useless` animals, nobbling the favourite by doping etc.

So in the early 1820s, he purchased a piece of land at 50 St. James Street, W1 and employed the architect John Nash to build a casino in the fashionable style of the period, Regency. He hired the greatest French chef of his day, Eustache Ude, brought cordon bleu cuisine to England for the first time and charged the highest membership fee of any casino in the capital. Crockfords opened in 1827, and became the most sophisticated gaming club in Europe. On the first floor was the Hazard Room, Crockfords lair and in the corner, like a spider, sat Crockford plotting the downfall of all who joined.

Part of his deception was his servile and groveling manner with which he ingratiated himself upon his victims, like Charles Dickens character Uriah Heep.

“Excuse me my Lud, did I hear you say as how you had no more ready moneys? My Lud, this `ere is The Bank. If your Ludship wishes £1,000 or £2,000, I am at your Ludships service”

“Really Mister Crockford, you are very obliging; but I don't think I shall play anymore tonight.”

“Nothing I assure your my Ludship will give me greater pleasure than to give you the moneys”

“Well, let me have £2,000”

Crockford dipped his fingers into the bank, took out the money and handed it to his Lordship. “Per`aps your Ludship vould oblige me with an IOU and pay the amount at your conveniens.”

“Of course Mister Crockford.”

“Your Ludships werry kind....werry.”

So the heirs of some of England's greatest aristocratic families, young men with too much time, too much money and too little sense, living in a culture whereby a gentlemen s virility was encouraged at the gaming tables and slightly drunk, compliments of Crockfords Cellar, lost their inheritance and their families estates to `Crocky` from the East End of London.

The Members of Crockfords

Lord Thanet – one night lost £120,000
Lord Lichfield – declared bankrupt, lost £200,000
Lord Anglesey – declared bankrupt, estimated loss £200,000
Lord Raglan – declared bankrupt, estimated loss £200,000
Lord Sefton – declared bankrupt, lost £250,000
Lord Allen
Lord Chesterfield
The Duke of Wellington
Prince Esterhazy
Disraeli
Count Pozzo di Borgo
Beau Brummel