John Scarne
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Orlando Carmelo Scarnecchia (March 4, 1903 - July 7, 1985) was born in Steubenville, Ohio and at some point anglicized his name to John Scarne (/skɑɹni/). He moved to Fairview, New Jersey as a child. Leaving school after the eighth grade, he learned as a teenager how to perform card tricks like Three-card Monte and to gamble using cards and dice. His mother, disappointed in how he was making his money (the family was Roman Catholic), encouraged him to take up magic instead. He soon started making money at card tricks.
Gradually, Scarne became quite an expert at tricks and games of all kinds. Articles were written about him in various magazines, and he was hired as a consultant or advisor by various companies, as well as by the US Army, which sent him to bases around the world in order to educate soldiers about the dangers of card and dice cheats. He also wrote or co-wrote twenty-eight books on games, such as Scarne on Dice, Scarne's Guide to Modern Poker and Scarne's New Complete Guide to Gambling. He also wrote two autobiographies: The Amazing World of John Scarne: A Personal History (1956), and The Odds Against Me (1966). Scarne was often proclaimed by experts, magicians and editors of the time as the greatest card manipulator of all time.
He served as a technical advisor in the 1973 motion picture, The Sting, and doubled for actor Paul Newman's hands during scenes that involved card manipulations and deck switching.
But he was happiest when inventing (and marketing, through his company John Scarne Games, Inc.) new games, which he did quite a bit. And he was especially proud of one called Teeko, which he invented in 1945 (version withdrawn), re-invented in 1952 and modified in the 1960s. He was so proud of the game that he named his son John Teeko Scarne. But he never made a profit on the game, and it is now virtually unknown.
Scarne's most famous card trick was appropiately titled "Scarne's Aces". The trick involved taking a spectators shuffled deck of cards, performing a series of riffle shuffles himself and then cutting to all four aces.
Scarne was also the first person to attempt to discredit Edward O. Thorp's blackjack card counting system. In his book The Odds Against Me, he analyzed Thorp's system and concluded that the whole system was loaded with mathematical errors and it was pure fiction dreamed by Thorp. Scarne also went on to attempt to discredit Wilson's famous blackjack point count system.
Scarne married Steffi Storm (née Norma Kearney) in 1955 (and they had John Teeko the same year).
Scarne died July 7, 1985 at 82, while living in North Bergen, New Jersey.
[edit] Trivia
The character Scarne, played by Bo Hopkins from the 2003 film Shade was named for John Scarne.
[edit] References
- Cook, Joan (July 9, 1985). John Scarne, gambling expert. The New York Times, p. B6.
- Eskin, Blake (July 15, 2001). A world of games. The Washington Post Magazine, p. W18.
- Deaths Elsewhere (July 9, 1985). The Washington Post, p. D8.
