Origins of the game
Faro, or Farobank,
is a very old banking card game, and is thought to have originated in Italy,
belonging to the same family of games as Lansquenet,
Florentine and Monte
Bank. It was known as Pharaon in the French court of Louis
XIV. In the 1700s it was the most popular gambling house game in England.
The following century it became equally popular in the USA (via New Orleans),
where it was often called Bucking the Tiger. The game's history in
USA is particularly colourful.
Basic rules and objectives
Faro is a gambling
game of pure chance. Players try to predict whether the next card to appear,
of the denomination bet on, will be a winning or a losing card. Cards appear
in play two at a time. The first of each pair is always the losing card,
the second the winning card.
