Gambling in Class.
In class we sometimes play a betting game. It works like this. First I take 2-4 cards that the kids are learning and place them face up on a table or special mat. Then I choose one duplicate of those cards and place it face down.
The face down card is of course the chosen card that they have to figure out. So the bet by placing chips on the face up cards.
I reveal the face down card, and pay the winners and take the money from the losers.
The challenge is getting the children to not only play with their own chips, but be willing to lose them too.
Today was unreal in that respect.
Normally the greedy little punks only bet one chip. I have a rule that if you bet one, you can’t lose it, but you will only win one in return. If you bet two or more and lose, I take them. However, if you win, I will pay back double. That is to say if you bet 5 and win, I will give you 10 chips as well as the 5 you bet. Not bad.
I put the cards down for their selection. then I told them to get ready, because the secret card was coming. I purposefully let them see the secret card on the way down.
They still only bet one or two chips. Everyone one. Confidence was boosted because they thought I was an idiot.
I congratulated everyone and started again. I told them to get ready, and put the next secret card down. Only this time I used some of my sleight of hand to switch it at the last minute. They thought they saw one card go down, but in reality a different one did.
Half of the class lost everything.
After another round of this, I decided to change the game up. I had lots of these cards, so I put a peak in them long ways so that when I laid them on the table, they looked like tents.
Then I showed 2 identical cards and one different. I told them to watch that different card and began to shuffle them on the table.
When I was finished, they started betting. Every kid won. They were excited at having to follow my hands so quickly.
Then we played again. This time I used a different sleight of hand to which 9 children, and one teacher, did not catch.
Those poor souls bet everything on where they thought the card was. One student said clearly that he didn’t think that was it, and bet everything he had elsewhere.
Everyone lost, but he got tons of chips.
Everyone was freaking out the entire class. They never accused me of cheating, they never got upset at losing, and they wanted to keep playing.
Kids are awesome practice for card tricks.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:26 pm by rl