Welcome back to another exclusive sneak preview of the Hue Jackson School of Scam Artistry!

The key to success to success is to fail. Or at least to make it appear like you’re failing. There’s a reason why some people are jealous of those who appear to be dumber than a sack of hammers – when they’re successful, it can be hard to tell if it’s actual competence or just sheer dumb luck. Sometimes dumb luck makes jealousy a little more palatable. This week’s Hall of Fame scammer might just be one of the smartest dumbasses who ever lived.

CANADA BILL JONES: KING OF THE RIVERBOAT GAMBLERS

BORN: c. 1837

DIED: October 22, 1877

Some of history’s greatest heroes come from extremely humble beginnings – Moses in a basket on the Nile, Arthur as an orphaned boy with an anvil and a sword, and the greatest cardsharp in history – Canada Bill Jones.

This week’s Hall of Famer was born in an English Travellers community in the UK, and from a young age, he learned the tricks of the trade in gambling and hustling. As the Romanichal faced – and indeed, still continues to face – lots of oppression in Victorian England, William James Jones emigrated to Canada in 1860.

While in Canada, he picked up three-card monte, which remains one of the most popular scam games in existence in gambling. For those unfamiliar, it’s similar to the shell game, where one player makes a bet on being able to find the “money” card laid face-down on the table, out of a group of three cards. Oftentimes, the mark believes he’s conspiring with another player to swindle the dealer, but in reality, the other player, known as a “thrower”, or “shill”, is conspiring with the dealer to swindle the mark.

Canada Bill spent a short period of time as a thrower in Canada, honing his skill under the apprenticeship of a man named Dick Cady. Seeking much bigger fortunes, Jones decided to leave for the United States, where the riverboats of the Mississippi offered humongous potential profits – even with the Civil War looming.

Part of Canada Bill’s success was in part that he appeared to be the biggest fucking dumbass this side of the Continental Divide. Here’s a quote from fellow gambler and scammer George Devol, who knew Jones well and worked with him for a period of time:

“Canada Bill was a character one might travel the length and breadth of the land and never see his match, or run across his equal. Imagine a medium-sized, chicken-headed, tow-haired sort of a man with mild blue eyes, and a mouth nearly from ear to ear, who walked with a shuffling, half-apologetic sort of a gait, and who, when his countenance was in repose, resembled an idiot. For hours he would sit in his chair, twisting his hair in little ringlets. His clothes were always several sizes too large, and his face was as smooth as a woman’s and never had a particle of hair on it. Canada was a slick one. He had a squeaking, boyish voice, and awkward, gawky manners, and a way of asking fool questions and putting on a good-natured sort of a grin, that led everybody to believe that he was the rankest kind of a sucker-the greenest sort of a country jake. Woe to the man who picked him up, though.”

In another fantastic quote from Allan Pinkerton (yes, THAT Pinkerton, of the infamous detective agency)…

“[Jones’] personal appearance, which was most ludicrous, undeniably had much to do with his success. He was the veritable country gawky, the ridiculous, ignorant, absurd creature that has been so imperfectly imitated on and off the stage for years, and whose true description can scarcely be written. He was fully six feet high, with dark eyes and hair, and always had a smooth-shaven face, full of seams and wrinkles, that were put to all manner of difficult expressions with a marvelous facility and ease. All this coupled with long, loose-jointed arms, long, thin, and apparently a trifle unsteady legs, a shambling, shuffling, awkward gait, and this remarkable face and head bent forward and turned a little to one side, like an inquiring and wise owl, and then an outfit of Granger clothing, the entire cost of which never exceeded fifteen dollars—made a combination that never failed to call a smile to a stranger’s face, or awaken a feeling of curiosity and interest wherever he might be seen. One striking difference between Canada Bill and all the other sharpers of his ilk lay in the fact that he was the thing he seemed to be…. [T]hose who knew him, as far as it was possible to know the wandering vagabond that he was, assert that he was the most unaffected, innocent, and really simple-hearted of human beings.”

Jones made scads and scads of cash – possibly over $200,000 in the brief years working the riverboats before the Civil War got intense – and lost it just as fast as he won it. Besides being an extremely kind and generous man – quick to give and help those who needed it most, including Catholic nuns – he was also, at his core, a seriously addicted gambler.

Turning monte is one thing when you know you’re going to win – playing poker is something else entirely. Despite being a brilliant fraudster, Canada Bill Jones was absolutely terrible at actual gambling. He routinely got taken to the cleaners playing poker and other games amongst professional card players. Still, it was never enough to stop him – when buddy George Devol asked Jones why he stayed in yet another game where he was clearly losing his shirt, he replied, “I know it’s crooked, but it’s the only game in town!”

After the Civil War ended, Canada Bill and his compatriots made their way towards working the railroads, with monte games continuing to draw lots of attention – much to the chagrin of railroad owners. Rumor has it he offered Union Pacific $10,000 for an exclusive franchise to play monte on the Omaha-KC run… which was politely rebuffed. Even when his offers increased to $30,000 a year, he couldn’t get the railroads to officially sanction the games – thus, after a while, it became too risky to play for long periods of time.

Canada Bill Jones eventually drifted back east, first to Chicago, then to Cleveland, and finally to Berks County, PA, where he died, flat broke, of tuberculosis, at age 40. With no assets to his name, his burial was paid for by the town of Reading, PA. Eventually, Jones’ Chicago gambling buddies got together and reimbursed the town for the expense, and erected a headstone in his honor. A fitting end for a colorful character and a hall-of-fame talent. Right to end, Canada Bill’s life was all about somebody making a buck – be it himself or others. To quote another author, John Quinn, in his book, Fools of Fortune:

“… as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, one of his friends offered to bet $1,000 to $500 that ‘Bill was not in the box.’ The offer found no takers, for the reason, as one of his acquaintances said, ‘that he had known Bill to squeeze through tighter holes than that’.”

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I live my life by Canada Bill Jones’ best-known quote: “It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.” It’s served me well thus far in my coaching career – and despite all being rather quiet on that front as of recent, I’m confident I can shell-game my way into another job soon enough. In the meantime, don’t forget to tell your friends to buy my audio cassette lessons! Remember – dial 1-900-FAST-BUX right now and you’ll receive a free ahhh fuck it who am I kidding nobody ever listens to the end of the tape anyways hahah thanks for the free cash you damn idiots ah shit I guess this should probably get edited out in post…

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Information from this article taken from here, here, here, here, and here. Banner image by The Maestro.