The Sting is a 1973 American heist film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw. Set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss (Shaw). Hill had previously directed Newman and Redford in the Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). The screenplay, written by David S. Ward, was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his 1940 book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man.
A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators at the expense of their victims ".
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, and politician remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding with James Anthony Bailey the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was also an author, publisher, and philanthropist, although he said of himself: "I am a showman by profession ... and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me." According to Barnum's critics, his personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers". The adage "there's a sucker born every minute" has frequently been attributed to him, although no evidence exists that he had coined the phrase.
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m), roughly 3,000 pound purported "petrified man", uncovered on October 16, 1869 by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell, in Cardiff, New York. He covered the giant with a tent and it soon became an attraction site. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P. T. Barnum are still being displayed. P.T. Barnum's is on display at Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
The shell game is a public gambling game that challenges players to follow the movement of a marker hidden under one of several covers (shells). In practice, the game is almost always run as a confidence trick that uses sleight of hand to transfer the marker between covers. In confidence trick slang, this swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off. The shell game is related to the cups and balls conjuring trick, which is performed purely for entertainment purposes without any purported gambling element.
Lou Blonger, born Louis Herbert Belonger, was a Wild West saloonkeeper, gambling-house owner, and mine speculator, but is best known as the kingpin of an extensive ring of confidence tricksters that operated for more than 25 years in Denver, Colorado. His "Million-Dollar Bunco Ring" was brought to justice in a famous trial in 1923.
Barnum is an American musical with a book by Mark Bramble, lyrics by Michael Stewart, and music by Cy Coleman. It is based on the life of showman P. T. Barnum, covering the period from 1835 through 1880 in America and major cities of the world where Barnum took his performing companies. The production combines elements of traditional musical theater with the spectacle of the circus. The characters include jugglers, trapeze artists and clowns, as well as such real-life personalities as Jenny Lind and General Tom Thumb.
Anwar Sardar "Anu" Malik is an Indian music composer, singer, music arranger and score composer. He is an Indian National Award and Filmfare Award winning musician, who primarily composes music for the Hindi film industry. He is the son of Sardar Malik.
Switch is an American action-adventure detective series starring Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert. It was broadcast on the CBS network for three seasons between September 9, 1975, and August 27, 1978, bumping the Hawaii Five-O detective series to Friday nights.
Adam John Forepaugh was an American horse trader and circus owner. From 1865 through 1890 his circus operated under various names including Forepaugh's Circus, Forepaugh's Gigantic Circus and Menagerie, The Forepaugh Show, 4-PAW Show, The Adam Forepaugh Circus, and Forepaugh & The Wild West.
Confidence is a 2003 American crime drama film starring Edward Burns, Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia and Rachel Weisz, directed by James Foley and written by Doug Jung.
Opie Percival Read was an American journalist and humorist. His bibliography lists 60 published books.
Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena is a 2005 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Suparn Verma, according to whom it is inspired by 14 con films, including the American films Confidence and House of Games. It stars Fardeen Khan, Feroz Khan, Kay Kay Menon and Koena Mitra. The film was released on 18 November 2005, and was a commercial failure.
Dan Mulcahy, known by the pseudonyms of Louis Harris and Dan the Dude, was a New York criminal and the longtime owner of the Stag Cafe at 28 West 28th Street, in the vice district of Satan's Circus. The cafe was a popular hangout for many of the criminals in New York's underworld. Dan was most noted as a fixer and confidant of numerous con men, many of whom came from out of town and used his establishment as their unofficial base. "In olden times [around 1910-1915] in Dan the Dude's place," it was said, "you could see a hundred con men there at once, and not one of them would be a native New Yorker."
David Warren "Doc" Maurer was a professor of linguistics at the University of Louisville from 1937 to 1972. He was an acknowledged expert in American slang, especially the lingo of grifters, pickpockets, forgers, safecrackers and other underworld characters. In his academic career, he authored over 200 journal articles, professional papers, and books in the field of linguistics.
William "Canada Bill" Jones was an English-born confidence artist, riverboat gambler and card sharp in Canada and the United States. He has been described by historians, news reporters and others who have written about his life since the late 19th century with such superlatives as "the greatest of confidence men" and "without doubt the greatest three-card-monte sharp ever to work the boats, perhaps the greatest of them all."
Reed C. Waddell was an American swindler, confidence man and underworld figure in New York during the mid- to late 19th century. He was one of the most successful men of his trade making nearly a quarter of a million dollars using his "gold brick" swindle, a con game which he invented and introduced to New York in 1880, and from which the term "goldbricker" originated.
Joseph "Hungry Joe" Lewis was an American criminal and swindler. He was regarded as one of the top confidence and bunco men in the United States during the late 19th century whose success was matched only by contemporaries such as Tom O'Brien and Charles P. Miller, sharing the title of "King of the Bunco Men" with both men at various times in his career.
Charles P. Miller was an American gambler, confidence man and swindler. He was popularly known as "King of the Bunco Men", at times sharing that title with fellow tricksters Tom O'Brien and Joseph "Hungry Joe" Lewis, and ran one of the largest bunco operations in the United States during the late 19th century.
Tom O'Brien was an American confidence man and swindler during the late 19th century. He was popularly known as "King of the Bunco Men", along with other prominent tricksters such as Joseph "Hungry Joe" Lewis and Charles P. Miller, and organized countless bunco and confidence schemes throughout the United States, especially in New Orleans, Chicago and New York, as well as in Europe. He often partnered with a number of confidence and banco men such as Lon Ludlam, Red Adams, Frank Smith, Pete Carlisle, Ed Ray, Red Austin, Charley Hinnell, "Hungry Joe" Lewis and Reed Waddell. He later shot and killed Waddell in an argument over money following a scheme they had run in Paris, France.
