I’ve always considered writing a "Road Player" themed book. I've received some positive input so I may take the time to right an extensive version.....see what you think 
I sat in the backseat, thumping through my partners roadmap. Each state had
many towns circled with names, numbers and descriptions beside them. I knew
if I wanted more detail they also had a "spot book" that would have every
player in each town with a description of them and an order in which we
would ideally "take the town off".
You see we weren't interested in just
beating someone playing pool, we were out to beat the whole town out of as
much as possible. Most little towns had their "champion" that everybody
would bet on and usually we would have to play him to win a big score, but
not always. I have been a part of huge scores where we were playing someone
that couldn't hit the ocean if they were standing on the beach. I wasn't
the one that was usually playing the pigeons. That was usually done by my
partner that looked more like a football player than a pool player, but
don't ever let looks deceive you, he could play right under championship
speed, especially on the bar size tables.
Sometimes it was difficult to even know what state we were in when we
finally got a hotel at the end of the night, but I didn't even care. I just
needed to find my next opponent like a junkie needs that next fix. I loved
the action, but more importantly I loved to win the money. There are many
people that think they are "pool hustlers" but there are several levels that
most are unaware of.
First you have the scuffler. He is the bottom feeder
and constantly moves around to different bars looking for someone that is
either drunk or simply can't play. This type guy wouldn't bet two big dogs
could whip a little dog and usually won't even put up $100 unless he sees
buzzards flying over the poor victim. Next you have the typical hustler.
This guy usually plays better than he looks and knows a thousand and one
proposition games that look to good to be true and definitely are.
We like some of these guys, but they don't really get any true respect from my
group. Then there are the "players". These guys play like burning hell as
long as they can't lose any of there own money. They usually have a
"stake-horse" that puts up the money and they play their hearts out.
Unfortunately their hearts aren't that resilient and even though they play
well and run balls properly, when they get up against the elite group
they know their place and usually bow out peacefully once they know
they are in a bad game.
The next group are the ones that we get
involved with and it is purely business. I know they will get the money and
we don't have to worry about gambling, but strategically milk the room for the
maximum amount. We are called the "road warriors". We stay on the road
because once people know who we are and how we play they would rather gargle
razor blades than play us for any amount of money. Not only will they lose
their precious to us, chances are they will lose their self esteem (temporarily) as
well. we relish the thought of not only beating another player, but enjoy sending to a shrink for a month or two. The beauty is
there's no physical harm, unlike a boxer that can cause brain damage
physically, we just wanted to cause damage mentally and financially.
"We have arrived! You better write down your names so you don't forget this
time".
I reached into the front seat and was handed the "spot book". I thumbed
through until I found the town that we were in and started to study the
information. Looks like there is one main pool room and two bars that
everybody gambles in.
The pool room had a player with a seven beside his
name and description of what he played, how much he would bet and how he had
lost the most money in the past. The other bars had a couple of scufflers
that fed off two of the regulars. One owned a car dealership and the other
was a bookmaker that took sports bets and used one of the bars as an
"office".
I immediately knew that he would be my target. The main goal
would be to go to the bar and mix with the crowd for awhile. We would get
on the pool table and bet a few dollars, but we would be more interested on
meeting the key people and putting something in their head that would elicit
greed. You can't con an honest man, right? We basically wanted everyone to
know that we had a lot of money and not much sense.
We pulled over at a little country cafe and went in to get some good food
before we were subjected to the bar scene, where pork rines were considered
a delicacy. We would also use this time to get a plan together and decide
who would play and in what order and if we would split up and cover the pool
room and the bars. I enjoyed this as much as actually playing sometimes.
Like I said before it is not the winning that was important to a road
player, but winning the maximum amount that made the difference.
I would run in to other road players that were unfortunate enough to get behind us
on a road trip. They would come in to town a day or two after we had left.
I always got a good laugh when they would comment that we would leave
nothing but tombstones in these poor pool rooms and bars. Some of the towns
wouldn't take kindly to someone asking to play for money soon after we had
tortured them. They weren't in the best of moods about gambling at pool
after we had drained them.
After we ate we started chit chatting with our waitress and started dropping a few names that were our targets. She immediately knew one of them and started to give us personal information about him. He will never know that he was “set up” by a friend of his without her even knowing it.
It is amazing how often someone we would meet would actually know one of the names on our list and unknowingly give us detailed information on where to find them and how to approach them.
Sometimes our spot book wasn't up to date and there would be another place to play in town or another player that we could key on. It didn't matter, once we were in town for a few hours we knew we would have all the info we would need to take off a score.
This was our business and we knew it very, very well. We got directions to where we needed to go and we headed for the car. As I stepped out the door I could feel the flakes of snow falling and got an instant adrenaline rush. I knew tonight everyone would be inside, out of the weather and doing what they enjoyed most, gambling at pool.
Little did any of them know who had just come into their little town and what was in store for the ones that would play a stranger a game of pool. I got into the backseat of the car and started to rehearse my lines and fantasize about winning my biggest score as we prepared to go to the nights “office” and see what our “bosses” were willing to pay us at the chance of beating us out of our money :wink: that would be the day!
“ What are we going to say we’re doing in this redneck megalopolis”?
“ Stop at this gas station and I’ll get a newspaper. There’s got to be something going on around here. Maybe a goat roping or a gay rights parade.”
We pulled in and I got out to get a paper. This was a standard routine before taking off a town. We would definitely get the third degree at some point during the night and preparation was very important. If we didn't have a purpose for being in the town it would make the locals very suspicious, but on the other hand if we convinced them that we were there for a legitimate reason (other than to hustle them out of their money) they would be easier to entice into a “friendly” game of pool. We wanted our “marks” to think that we had plenty of money and not much sense so that their greed would get the better of them.
I brought back the paper and started thumbing through it to find some reason that would explain our presence.
“Here we go. There’s a big farm sale at the livestock market tomorrow and I’m sure we can get a great deal on a John Deer tractor. We can tell them that our crop just came in and we are looking to expand our production next year. They will think we’re growing pot anyway when we flash this wad of cash”.
This was always one of our favorite ploys. We would tell people that we were there for a certain reason, but in a way that if they didn't believe us they would jump to the conclusion that we were really there to pick up or deliver some drugs. If they were clever enough to figure this out it was perfect because then they would be on a mission to beat us out of our money before someone else did. Reverse psychology was nothing compared to what we were fixing to put in these poor peoples minds.
“What about the tags?”
“Yeah, I don’t think they’ll believe we drove 1000 miles to get a good deal on a tractor. Pull over at that hotel and I’ll “borrow” some for the night.”
Almost routinely once everyone knew that we wanted to gamble someone would go out and check out our car to see if we had out of state tags. We would sometimes go to a hotel and get one of the plates off a car, glue magnets to it and stick it on over our plates then we could park in plain sight of the front door of the place without worrying about spooking our potential customers.
After we were done we would return the plate to the car and everyone would be happy and if the car was gone before we returned at least they would have one of their plates (we would pick cars that had a front and back tag). We weren't “stealing anything”, just borrowing for a little while. We knew the owners would approve. Right?
We decided to split up and hit the bars and the pool room at the same time. We dropped Bill off at the pool room and Mike and I went to the first bar. Bill’s forte was to go to a pool room, get a game with the first guy that had any jewelry on and precede to lose every game for ten dollars a game.
This was called “laying down a lemon” and was like planting seeds to Bill. He knew that he didn't look like a pool player and took full advantage of it. What would usually happen is Mike and I would end up beating all the players and then they would all want to play Bill because they knew that he had lost earlier and was definitely a weak player. Bill would then refuse to play any of the players, but would match up a game with the guys that put the money up for the players.
The players would encourage their backers to play hoping that they would win and then give them another chance to play. That parade was soon rained on because despite looking like a linebacker, Bill was just a notch under a top road player. By the time he started playing we were usually big winner and the opponent would have his “nose open” and ready to “go off like a rocket”.
The only time this ever backfired on us is when someone jarred Bill’s drink and we just about had to knock him out to get him to stop playing and get him out of the place. “Jar” is a drug that someone can put in your drink that will put you in la la land and you will think that your playing like a world champion and will lose every game until you either run out of money or someone makes you quit. I have had this happen three times that I know of and it is no fun. I think it is used to put women in a euphoric state during labor or something funky like that.
All I know is, you can’t quit and you “think” you’re playing well. We never did this to anyone, even pool hustlers have a morals and ethics about how they operate. We were clean.
I liked traveling with Bill because it was so easy for him to get a game. He played the big, dumb guy routine so well that I would even start to believe it, even though I knew he was sharp as a tack. I remember one time we were hustling down in Florida and every night we would end up going to a late night club for after hours action.
This place had three bars in one, but the bathrooms were back by the pool tables and Bill would ask everyone that looked like they had money to play one game for a hundred and it was amazing how many people would take him up on it. That would never work for me because I looked like I might be a player, but Bill looked more like a lumberjack.
This trip was very profitable because I flew in after Bill had already won some pretty big money and shown his true playing speed. No one knew that we were together so I played Bill in front of everyone. The first night and lost $2800. , then quit and got drunk and started telling the “house detective” (the one that wants to be a big shot and tell everyone how smart he is) that I was down to make a “buy”, letting him jump to the conclusion that I was buying something very expensive and very illegal.
I came in the next night and the house detective had already told everybody in town that I was a big drug dealing sucker and everyone started asking me to play pool. I told them that I just wanted to play the big guy that I played last night. Just then Bill came in the door and we matched up again, but Bill spotted me the eight ball as a handicap and beat me out of another $4200.00, I quit and had some more drinks telling the house detective how upset I was because it looked like I was going to have to spend a few more days there. I also told him that I was looking at a new corvette that I was probably going to buy the next day to give to my girlfriend.
From that point on it was like shooting ducks out of a barrel. I had people calling me to make appointments to play and of course I knew exactly how everyone played. Bill disappeared for a week and I beat the area out of about thirty thousand in the next five days. They had never experienced anything like that and I heard that after we left they wouldn't play any strangers a game of pool for about six months.
One thing that we always did when we went to a new area was to beat the small towns first before moving into the bigger cities. Many times through this process we would become friends with one of the guys in a small town and talk him into “putting on a show” at one of the pool rooms in a big city.
Putting on a show was what I had done with Bill, where you play someone just so other people can see how bad you play. Most times you know the person that you are doing this with because if you don’t it is more like laying down a lemon. This was especially easy to do if the guy had been hustled by one of the big city players. They would get there rocks off pulling off a score with us because they loved being part of hustling the big city “smart guys”.
I even had a guy refuse to take his end, he said he had so much fun being involved that he should be paying us. We felt like we did our good deed for the day, making friends and influencing people was our job. Oh, yeah, and relieving them of the burden of money in their pocket. It makes them play better when they’re a little lighter in the "hip".....our game was their teacher.
SLANG WORDS COMMONLY USED BY ROAD PLAYERS
George- Word that means something is good. “the movie was george” or “the game is george” We also use double george to mean really good. This can be signaled to another Road-Player by putting their hand over their chest.
Tom- The opposite of george and simply means something is bad. If the game is a tom game then you shouldn't play. This can be signaled by brushing your nose with your finger. Double tom for emphasis.
Stalling or laying down- playing “under your speed” , missing balls on purpose or anything to make yourself appear to play less than you really do.
Lemon or lemonade- losing on purpose with the intention of coming back at a later time to beat either the person you played or someone else. Enables you to bet higher because someone already saw you lose and underrates your game. Lemons require you to stall.
Cut Up Money - "split up according to performance"
Jar- means to put something in someones drink to make them play bad and lose. Even if a drink hasn't been opened it can be jarred by shooting the substance in the bottle or can with an insulin needle or syringe.
Spot-book- the book that you keep the names and personal information about someone that tells how to beat them out of the most money, how much they will bet, how much they can be spotted, what they look like, where they play, what game they like and don’t like, and anything else that will help win the maximum money off of them.
Spot-sheet- a piece of paper with all the information you need for a certain location that has information on everyone in the room that has to do with gambling.
Mark- someone that has been targeted to be hustled or conned
Chip- used in reference to drugs that keep you up (amphetamines)
Shortstop- someone that thinks they play well but are not capable of beating any real players.
Steer-man- someone that tells Road-Players where they can go to win money and gives them the information that goes in their spot-book. A good steer-man will make 20% of the winnings for giving a good “steer”.
Stake-horse or backer- someone that puts up the money for a player and usually will split the winnings with the player 50-50 or 60-40 depending on the status of the player and how desperate he is for action.
Bankroll- refers to the money that you have to gamble with. Most gamblers will keep a “roll” of money in their front pocket for show.
Flash- to show a potential mark a roll of money seemingly unintentionally.
Nit- someone that is tight with their money and “won’t bet fat meat is greasy.” “no gambling nit”
Nose open- refers to when a sucker is beyond the point of no return and is chasing his money trying to win it back, but is in a trap and will probably lose all he has and all he can borrow.
Sucker- a loser or someone that always finds a way to lose his money.
Scuffler- someone that hangs around bars or pool rooms looking for suckers that can’t possibly win. They usually make most of their living doing this.
Road-player- the premier pool hustlers. They may go years without losing because they play really well and always know who they are playing before they play. They always have spot-books and access to the best steer-men.
Going off- means losing most if not all of your money gambling
Sharking- to intentionally try to distract your opponent by either saying something or doing something while they are shooting a shot.
Double steer- to give someone a steer to play a certain game, but actually being in with the other person. This is common among hustlers and stake-horses, especially in the big city pool rooms.
Double steer lemon- Pretending to set up a double steer, but actually being in with the first guy for the purpose of getting someone else into a game. Because of the double steer format the winning player would have to split the money with the person setting it up and if it is really a lemon then you are appearing to lose twice as much as you really are and you have the player thinking that he has really won and will tell people that are in with him so that they might get caught up in a future game. This is only done by experienced Road-Players and hustlers.
Dump- to lose a stake-horses money on purpose and splitting it with the player later at a secret meeting place.
Knockers - People that tell others the level of players game so they won't play. Knockers do this to feel important and useful, but as a result keep the action in a pool room to a bare minimum. Knockers are hated by road players.
Detectives - They are like knockers, but sometimes use all the information they come up with to gamble themselves. They know how everyone in town plays and are useful to hustlers because they give them information...sometimes for free, but usually want a "piece of the action" in return.
I sat in the backseat, thumping through my partners roadmap. Each state had
many towns circled with names, numbers and descriptions beside them. I knew
if I wanted more detail they also had a "spot book" that would have every
player in each town with a description of them and an order in which we
would ideally "take the town off".
You see we weren't interested in just
beating someone playing pool, we were out to beat the whole town out of as
much as possible. Most little towns had their "champion" that everybody
would bet on and usually we would have to play him to win a big score, but
not always. I have been a part of huge scores where we were playing someone
that couldn't hit the ocean if they were standing on the beach. I wasn't
the one that was usually playing the pigeons. That was usually done by my
partner that looked more like a football player than a pool player, but
don't ever let looks deceive you, he could play right under championship
speed, especially on the bar size tables.
Sometimes it was difficult to even know what state we were in when we
finally got a hotel at the end of the night, but I didn't even care. I just
needed to find my next opponent like a junkie needs that next fix. I loved
the action, but more importantly I loved to win the money. There are many
people that think they are "pool hustlers" but there are several levels that
most are unaware of.
First you have the scuffler. He is the bottom feeder
and constantly moves around to different bars looking for someone that is
either drunk or simply can't play. This type guy wouldn't bet two big dogs
could whip a little dog and usually won't even put up $100 unless he sees
buzzards flying over the poor victim. Next you have the typical hustler.
This guy usually plays better than he looks and knows a thousand and one
proposition games that look to good to be true and definitely are.
We like some of these guys, but they don't really get any true respect from my
group. Then there are the "players". These guys play like burning hell as
long as they can't lose any of there own money. They usually have a
"stake-horse" that puts up the money and they play their hearts out.
Unfortunately their hearts aren't that resilient and even though they play
well and run balls properly, when they get up against the elite group
they know their place and usually bow out peacefully once they know
they are in a bad game.
The next group are the ones that we get
involved with and it is purely business. I know they will get the money and
we don't have to worry about gambling, but strategically milk the room for the
maximum amount. We are called the "road warriors". We stay on the road
because once people know who we are and how we play they would rather gargle
razor blades than play us for any amount of money. Not only will they lose
their precious to us, chances are they will lose their self esteem (temporarily) as
well. we relish the thought of not only beating another player, but enjoy sending to a shrink for a month or two. The beauty is
there's no physical harm, unlike a boxer that can cause brain damage
physically, we just wanted to cause damage mentally and financially.
"We have arrived! You better write down your names so you don't forget this
time".
I reached into the front seat and was handed the "spot book". I thumbed
through until I found the town that we were in and started to study the
information. Looks like there is one main pool room and two bars that
everybody gambles in.
The pool room had a player with a seven beside his
name and description of what he played, how much he would bet and how he had
lost the most money in the past. The other bars had a couple of scufflers
that fed off two of the regulars. One owned a car dealership and the other
was a bookmaker that took sports bets and used one of the bars as an
"office".
I immediately knew that he would be my target. The main goal
would be to go to the bar and mix with the crowd for awhile. We would get
on the pool table and bet a few dollars, but we would be more interested on
meeting the key people and putting something in their head that would elicit
greed. You can't con an honest man, right? We basically wanted everyone to
know that we had a lot of money and not much sense.
We pulled over at a little country cafe and went in to get some good food
before we were subjected to the bar scene, where pork rines were considered
a delicacy. We would also use this time to get a plan together and decide
who would play and in what order and if we would split up and cover the pool
room and the bars. I enjoyed this as much as actually playing sometimes.
Like I said before it is not the winning that was important to a road
player, but winning the maximum amount that made the difference.
I would run in to other road players that were unfortunate enough to get behind us
on a road trip. They would come in to town a day or two after we had left.
I always got a good laugh when they would comment that we would leave
nothing but tombstones in these poor pool rooms and bars. Some of the towns
wouldn't take kindly to someone asking to play for money soon after we had
tortured them. They weren't in the best of moods about gambling at pool
after we had drained them.
After we ate we started chit chatting with our waitress and started dropping a few names that were our targets. She immediately knew one of them and started to give us personal information about him. He will never know that he was “set up” by a friend of his without her even knowing it.
It is amazing how often someone we would meet would actually know one of the names on our list and unknowingly give us detailed information on where to find them and how to approach them.
Sometimes our spot book wasn't up to date and there would be another place to play in town or another player that we could key on. It didn't matter, once we were in town for a few hours we knew we would have all the info we would need to take off a score.
This was our business and we knew it very, very well. We got directions to where we needed to go and we headed for the car. As I stepped out the door I could feel the flakes of snow falling and got an instant adrenaline rush. I knew tonight everyone would be inside, out of the weather and doing what they enjoyed most, gambling at pool.
Little did any of them know who had just come into their little town and what was in store for the ones that would play a stranger a game of pool. I got into the backseat of the car and started to rehearse my lines and fantasize about winning my biggest score as we prepared to go to the nights “office” and see what our “bosses” were willing to pay us at the chance of beating us out of our money :wink: that would be the day!
“ What are we going to say we’re doing in this redneck megalopolis”?
“ Stop at this gas station and I’ll get a newspaper. There’s got to be something going on around here. Maybe a goat roping or a gay rights parade.”
We pulled in and I got out to get a paper. This was a standard routine before taking off a town. We would definitely get the third degree at some point during the night and preparation was very important. If we didn't have a purpose for being in the town it would make the locals very suspicious, but on the other hand if we convinced them that we were there for a legitimate reason (other than to hustle them out of their money) they would be easier to entice into a “friendly” game of pool. We wanted our “marks” to think that we had plenty of money and not much sense so that their greed would get the better of them.
I brought back the paper and started thumbing through it to find some reason that would explain our presence.
“Here we go. There’s a big farm sale at the livestock market tomorrow and I’m sure we can get a great deal on a John Deer tractor. We can tell them that our crop just came in and we are looking to expand our production next year. They will think we’re growing pot anyway when we flash this wad of cash”.
This was always one of our favorite ploys. We would tell people that we were there for a certain reason, but in a way that if they didn't believe us they would jump to the conclusion that we were really there to pick up or deliver some drugs. If they were clever enough to figure this out it was perfect because then they would be on a mission to beat us out of our money before someone else did. Reverse psychology was nothing compared to what we were fixing to put in these poor peoples minds.
“What about the tags?”
“Yeah, I don’t think they’ll believe we drove 1000 miles to get a good deal on a tractor. Pull over at that hotel and I’ll “borrow” some for the night.”
Almost routinely once everyone knew that we wanted to gamble someone would go out and check out our car to see if we had out of state tags. We would sometimes go to a hotel and get one of the plates off a car, glue magnets to it and stick it on over our plates then we could park in plain sight of the front door of the place without worrying about spooking our potential customers.
After we were done we would return the plate to the car and everyone would be happy and if the car was gone before we returned at least they would have one of their plates (we would pick cars that had a front and back tag). We weren't “stealing anything”, just borrowing for a little while. We knew the owners would approve. Right?
We decided to split up and hit the bars and the pool room at the same time. We dropped Bill off at the pool room and Mike and I went to the first bar. Bill’s forte was to go to a pool room, get a game with the first guy that had any jewelry on and precede to lose every game for ten dollars a game.
This was called “laying down a lemon” and was like planting seeds to Bill. He knew that he didn't look like a pool player and took full advantage of it. What would usually happen is Mike and I would end up beating all the players and then they would all want to play Bill because they knew that he had lost earlier and was definitely a weak player. Bill would then refuse to play any of the players, but would match up a game with the guys that put the money up for the players.
The players would encourage their backers to play hoping that they would win and then give them another chance to play. That parade was soon rained on because despite looking like a linebacker, Bill was just a notch under a top road player. By the time he started playing we were usually big winner and the opponent would have his “nose open” and ready to “go off like a rocket”.
The only time this ever backfired on us is when someone jarred Bill’s drink and we just about had to knock him out to get him to stop playing and get him out of the place. “Jar” is a drug that someone can put in your drink that will put you in la la land and you will think that your playing like a world champion and will lose every game until you either run out of money or someone makes you quit. I have had this happen three times that I know of and it is no fun. I think it is used to put women in a euphoric state during labor or something funky like that.
All I know is, you can’t quit and you “think” you’re playing well. We never did this to anyone, even pool hustlers have a morals and ethics about how they operate. We were clean.
I liked traveling with Bill because it was so easy for him to get a game. He played the big, dumb guy routine so well that I would even start to believe it, even though I knew he was sharp as a tack. I remember one time we were hustling down in Florida and every night we would end up going to a late night club for after hours action.
This place had three bars in one, but the bathrooms were back by the pool tables and Bill would ask everyone that looked like they had money to play one game for a hundred and it was amazing how many people would take him up on it. That would never work for me because I looked like I might be a player, but Bill looked more like a lumberjack.
This trip was very profitable because I flew in after Bill had already won some pretty big money and shown his true playing speed. No one knew that we were together so I played Bill in front of everyone. The first night and lost $2800. , then quit and got drunk and started telling the “house detective” (the one that wants to be a big shot and tell everyone how smart he is) that I was down to make a “buy”, letting him jump to the conclusion that I was buying something very expensive and very illegal.
I came in the next night and the house detective had already told everybody in town that I was a big drug dealing sucker and everyone started asking me to play pool. I told them that I just wanted to play the big guy that I played last night. Just then Bill came in the door and we matched up again, but Bill spotted me the eight ball as a handicap and beat me out of another $4200.00, I quit and had some more drinks telling the house detective how upset I was because it looked like I was going to have to spend a few more days there. I also told him that I was looking at a new corvette that I was probably going to buy the next day to give to my girlfriend.
From that point on it was like shooting ducks out of a barrel. I had people calling me to make appointments to play and of course I knew exactly how everyone played. Bill disappeared for a week and I beat the area out of about thirty thousand in the next five days. They had never experienced anything like that and I heard that after we left they wouldn't play any strangers a game of pool for about six months.
One thing that we always did when we went to a new area was to beat the small towns first before moving into the bigger cities. Many times through this process we would become friends with one of the guys in a small town and talk him into “putting on a show” at one of the pool rooms in a big city.
Putting on a show was what I had done with Bill, where you play someone just so other people can see how bad you play. Most times you know the person that you are doing this with because if you don’t it is more like laying down a lemon. This was especially easy to do if the guy had been hustled by one of the big city players. They would get there rocks off pulling off a score with us because they loved being part of hustling the big city “smart guys”.
I even had a guy refuse to take his end, he said he had so much fun being involved that he should be paying us. We felt like we did our good deed for the day, making friends and influencing people was our job. Oh, yeah, and relieving them of the burden of money in their pocket. It makes them play better when they’re a little lighter in the "hip".....our game was their teacher.
SLANG WORDS COMMONLY USED BY ROAD PLAYERS
George- Word that means something is good. “the movie was george” or “the game is george” We also use double george to mean really good. This can be signaled to another Road-Player by putting their hand over their chest.
Tom- The opposite of george and simply means something is bad. If the game is a tom game then you shouldn't play. This can be signaled by brushing your nose with your finger. Double tom for emphasis.
Stalling or laying down- playing “under your speed” , missing balls on purpose or anything to make yourself appear to play less than you really do.
Lemon or lemonade- losing on purpose with the intention of coming back at a later time to beat either the person you played or someone else. Enables you to bet higher because someone already saw you lose and underrates your game. Lemons require you to stall.
Cut Up Money - "split up according to performance"
Jar- means to put something in someones drink to make them play bad and lose. Even if a drink hasn't been opened it can be jarred by shooting the substance in the bottle or can with an insulin needle or syringe.
Spot-book- the book that you keep the names and personal information about someone that tells how to beat them out of the most money, how much they will bet, how much they can be spotted, what they look like, where they play, what game they like and don’t like, and anything else that will help win the maximum money off of them.
Spot-sheet- a piece of paper with all the information you need for a certain location that has information on everyone in the room that has to do with gambling.
Mark- someone that has been targeted to be hustled or conned
Chip- used in reference to drugs that keep you up (amphetamines)
Shortstop- someone that thinks they play well but are not capable of beating any real players.
Steer-man- someone that tells Road-Players where they can go to win money and gives them the information that goes in their spot-book. A good steer-man will make 20% of the winnings for giving a good “steer”.
Stake-horse or backer- someone that puts up the money for a player and usually will split the winnings with the player 50-50 or 60-40 depending on the status of the player and how desperate he is for action.
Bankroll- refers to the money that you have to gamble with. Most gamblers will keep a “roll” of money in their front pocket for show.
Flash- to show a potential mark a roll of money seemingly unintentionally.
Nit- someone that is tight with their money and “won’t bet fat meat is greasy.” “no gambling nit”
Nose open- refers to when a sucker is beyond the point of no return and is chasing his money trying to win it back, but is in a trap and will probably lose all he has and all he can borrow.
Sucker- a loser or someone that always finds a way to lose his money.
Scuffler- someone that hangs around bars or pool rooms looking for suckers that can’t possibly win. They usually make most of their living doing this.
Road-player- the premier pool hustlers. They may go years without losing because they play really well and always know who they are playing before they play. They always have spot-books and access to the best steer-men.
Going off- means losing most if not all of your money gambling
Sharking- to intentionally try to distract your opponent by either saying something or doing something while they are shooting a shot.
Double steer- to give someone a steer to play a certain game, but actually being in with the other person. This is common among hustlers and stake-horses, especially in the big city pool rooms.
Double steer lemon- Pretending to set up a double steer, but actually being in with the first guy for the purpose of getting someone else into a game. Because of the double steer format the winning player would have to split the money with the person setting it up and if it is really a lemon then you are appearing to lose twice as much as you really are and you have the player thinking that he has really won and will tell people that are in with him so that they might get caught up in a future game. This is only done by experienced Road-Players and hustlers.
Dump- to lose a stake-horses money on purpose and splitting it with the player later at a secret meeting place.
Knockers - People that tell others the level of players game so they won't play. Knockers do this to feel important and useful, but as a result keep the action in a pool room to a bare minimum. Knockers are hated by road players.
Detectives - They are like knockers, but sometimes use all the information they come up with to gamble themselves. They know how everyone in town plays and are useful to hustlers because they give them information...sometimes for free, but usually want a "piece of the action" in return.
