If you're still not sure how it works after watching this video, please watch this ▶️ kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rJ54fqao3L_Rk5c.html

Am I the only one little disappointed that we got no explanation how that "magic" trick works? I mean it's pretty obvious that it's made in a way that scammer has full control over the result, but I expected Jakub to show how he does it instead of basically repeating the same thing three times.

The biggest scam is that this video never shows you how it is done!

legend has it, you are still showing examples, but still not showing how it works

Got scammed of 50€ on this trick in Paris in 2014. How naive I was when I saw their 'scam-colleagues' making easy money while pretending they're on a win streak. Couldn't resist to chip in my note while making plans in my head what will I do with the money I was about to win 😂 my ex didn't talk to me for the rest of that day but I had my life lesson. When seeing these guys in London on one of the bridges hiding their 'tools' from the police, all I'm willing to do is to chuck it all into the Thames

I actually saw this scam in Prague around 2016/7 on the old bridge. Glad that you said there’s no where to be seen anymore.

I remember this scam in London's Oxford St in the 1970s. There were always shills playing who would win to lure you in. What gave them away was they all looked the same as the player - they had a slightly disheveled, unkempt appearance about them.

Just a correction, the cups and balls goes as far back to 2000 years ago, not just the 1500s. With some variations of course, with other materials such as dice instead of balls, but the same game/scam nonetheless.

ill never forget when i saw this on Unter den Linden in Berlin i 2011, 2-3 guys who were friends of the scammer kept winning and this one guy - the MOST touristy guy you can imagine with the "I Love Berlin t-shirt" - made a 200 euro bet and lost

In New Orleans, there were a couple of guys arguing with the shell game in front of a store. As I was heading inside, they acted like they needed me to settle the argument between them. I didn't care what it was about. They're in front of the store to mess with people. When I said no, they both looked disappointed.

In Serbia, the scammer is called "šibicar" because it was usually played with empty matchboxes (šibice). I haven't seen them in a while, but they were usually concentrated around green markets, flea markets, railway stations, with lots of traffic and/or naive people new to the town. My uncle lost his wristwatch and his weekly student's allowance to a matchbox guy on a train during his university days. He studied mathematics and thought he'd figure them out :)

yeah, that was very common in Bulgaria in the 90s. Im proud I never fell for it, but surprised it's still a thing

When I was in Budapest, I saw a gang playing this on the viewpoint over the River. I played the 'who is involved' game. I could spot several lookouts, a 'player' and a big guy. The game is called "balletje balletje" (little ball little ball) in Dutch, btw.

On the topic of Bosch's painting, it's believed that in the 15th century that owls were associated with death and menace, which is more fitting with the idea of being in the conjurer's basket.

I’ve seen scammers trying to con people out of money with this "game" in just about every touristy location I’ve visited around the world. Paris, Berlin, London, Sydney, New York, San Francisco…everywhere. People obviously fall for it or else the scammers wouldn’t be doing it. Thank you for making a video about it; hopefully it’ll save someone from losing their money.

"trick explained" in thumbnail. The only people that got scammed is the one who watches this until the end for the explanation.

How about the "Please, I will bless your mony. Just give me your wallet, you can hold it while I bless it for the virgin Mary!"-scheme? I gave her my wallet, it was empty, totally empty, and she got mad at me. It was hilarious! This was in Gdansk, just outside of the huge church of St Mary. I went to have a nice cup of "Captain's Tea" at a nearby restaurant after that. It was good and very affordable. Yes, I was giggeling the whole time.

The beer coaster one works because the top card or bottom card can be the one released 1st onto the table from the doubled cards in the operator's hand. That is the function of the sharp forward movement releasing a card (fast enough to confuse the eye). The 1st couple of 'doubled card drops' confirms normal experience and expectations (that a card 'drops' from the bottom), as the X card is where you expected it. The operator could do any number of doubled card steps, choosing each time whether the top or bottom card is dropped first.

I know how the three card Monte game works. I've practiced it. I live in Las Vegas and a few months ago I saw some guys performing this on the streets. After watching for a while I told the guy that I know the game. I got behind the table and I fooled the dealer! It was just for fun but he didn't catch me doing the move that he specializes in. Unfortunately I saw another person played the game and lose over $600. I felt bad for the guy because I knew he was not going to win.

Ive seen all of these played in Philadelphia mostly on the train, its easier to get away with it. Its crazy to see someone move the ball around while the train is shaking and moving too, its gotta be so much harder to pull off.

you have to teach the kids at a young age what its like to get scammed

Waiting the whole video to see how the trick is done 🤡🤡🤡

As a child i remember seeing this scam (game) being played in Sofia, Bulgaria. Haven't seen it recently otherwise i would have filmed it.

It's funny when Jakub made the first game to win, but Janek just got confused and was not attentive enough and chose the wrong card. No scam!

Not sure if the scammer at 10:54 is the same guy that I met at the top of the Citadella in Budapest in September but, at the time, I decided not to play because it felt too good to be true. Some "people" were losing money on easy guesses and it felt like I could easily guess them all. Now, with this video, I realize that those people were much probably his scam partners.

Hi, excellent video. My mom and I were in Paris and she decided she wanted to play the three card monte. One guy tried to distract me one guy played the game was another guy standing off to the side watching. I was smart and never took my eyes off my mother. It was fine until he started reaching into her wallet for money. That’s when I went over there I told the guy off and I took back their money. They were not happy but who cares. I am surprised at the amount of scammers in Europe. We don’t seem to have that much where I live in Canada. You’ve said this before to and that is everyone is out to get your money lol. Anyways have a good one eh!😁🇨🇦

Cups and Balls: Actually the oldest depiction of it is on a wall in ancient Egypt.

I think my area has a hotline for reporting all sorts of things including specifically street games such as this. But it's a useless hotline because I use it to report more harmful things and they demand I go inside houses to get names and addresses. So basically they want me to do their job and they don't offer a salary.

One of the oldest scams in history. I don't think its gonna ever go away sadly.

just back from Prague. after watching so many of your videos. the trip was amazing. Thanks HG. keep up the great work

too good bro thanks so much keep up the great work

Hello, thanks for your great videos ! I'll soon come to Prague, but I don't understand the different ways to use the public transport with basic paper tickets, phone tickets or Litacka card. Thank you !

In Paris on the other side of the Eiffel Tower in front of Le Kiosque des Fontaines we watched the game for over 2 hours. More than 15 people where involved. There where lookouts but also button pressers at pedestrian crossings. In 2 hours watching nobody played the game. Only there own people. Where do they life from?

In Naples, Italy, this scam has never stopped 😂

I'm from Skopje, Macedonia, and this game is "played" mostly where you filmed, that's between the Old Bazzar and the Skopje Main Square and on the Stone Bridge that links those two locations... all in all, we, the locals know that the guy with the cups and all of the others around him are in the same "deal" that's why they are loud for everyone to hear and they are so passively-inviting with that loudness, and this "game" is mostly to trick tourists because these locations are the most touristy

In paris i actually saw an american tourist win. There was a crowd. The scammer had already taken the 50€ and when he realised he lost to the american. The scammers all bounced and changed location, while the tourist just stood there asking bystanders for her money. Kinda sad.

Great video, as usual - but how long ago was this filmed ? It’s December, and everyone is n t-shirts!

The only good version of the "cup game" as my friends call it is when video games play it enitrely straight, like mario party minigames or boss mechanics in ffxiv such as queen's guard and shadowkeeper that basically do the cup game where the boss summons clones, marks one or two as real, then has them spin around the arena and you have to watch where the real ones went to know what attack will happen.

Thanks for the information, I live in Budapest and will be letting people know.

Sorry, maybe I'm just stupid, but I still haven't understood how this trick works after this video. Like what is the scammer doing to deceive you? The only explanation I have seen, is at 7:53 and it's too much for my brain 🧠 🙃.

Even The Simpsons made fun of this scam.

Here in Romania it is very popular too, named "alba-neagra" or literally black and white

6:08 in second test plat with bottle caps, 50 euro cents were placed under bottle cap that have scratches or what on top it, and then 50 euro cents appears on clean bottle cap.

06:00: Wow, I cannot see him do the switch. Those guys are so good. I would stand _no_ chance.

Nice the final with some hints of Czech: beautiful idea.

I remember some 13-ish years ago happening to find this played in the Milano Centrale tube, just a few meters out of the turnstiles.

i caught the slight of hand and guessed the right beer coaster :)

It's very simple. When he picks up two beer mats at the same time and throws one of them horizontally, sometimes he throws the top mat, sometimes he throws the bottom mat. It's impossible to see which one he threw.

Lol, the one with the coin & the beer caps, ALL of the caps had a coin under them (3 coins & 3 caps)

if you wanted an explanation how the trick works, here's one way how they do it: the second you pull out your purse and look down to your pocket, they swap the cup with the ball and one next to it. At least I've seen them do that several times now, but maybe the person loosing is just another involved scammer and they wanna make you think you know how they trick you... at least in this video, they had to have another trick as you always saw the cups/cards...

This is basic math. Honest Guide + Honest Scammer = Great Video!

When he stacks two coasters he throws the top one down instead the bottom one, which is counter intuitive and at normal speed its indistinguishable, but if you slow down the video you can see how.

These guys are awesome

A friend of mine once walked into gypsies with cups and balls and was trying to warn the people around that it's a scam. 10 min later he came back to us to confess that he somehow lost 50 EUR to them, I was laughing my ass off.

So basically, when playing cards, instead of picking the obvious one, pick one of the other ones for a 50/50 win. :D

If anyone wants to see how the cups and balls are done look up penn and teller clear cups and balls.

seeing you walking arround in sunshine without a jacket and in "normal" clothes, im getting jealous cus we in germany have near minus temps

where can i get your honest guide prague book?

0:15 sounds like two signal notification sounds in a row, that tripped me out

At 5:22 you can see he gently removes the coin from the middle and passes it to the left. I don't know why but in both times I knew where the coin was because I knew it wouldn't be in the obvious one so it would just be on the one he tried to hide at some point. That's how you win. But then they'd keep the money even if you won so

I could follow though where it was because I know how the trick works. You could see when he threw the top card instead of the bottom one. I didnt think it was the best choice of cards to do that because they are too thick and requires somewhat more force to throw the upper card. And so you could more easily see which card he threw. What he could do to hide the trick more with those thicker cards is to apply same movement and force even when he throws the bottom card to confuse you, then I wouldnt be able to follow and would be more random

It was mentioned before, that maybe we can win the first time we play to lure us to keep playing. Is it possible if we have won once, after that we immediately stop and leave the game? What will happen?

i get how he did the card scam, but the 50 cent one looks impossible, unless there is some kind of cuts on that black cloth, and he pushes 50cent in and with the other cap pushes it out, or he has more 50 cents under it, with one cap slide 50cent under (hide it) and with the other cap, out from hidden.

I was in Venice at Christmas and seen this game get set up and get going, I told my girlfriend to look at the 2 people standing around with one of them playing because they are in on it, anyway a local man walked across the bridge where the game was set up, now a good few people are standing around with a few now playing, the local starts going crazy at the man doing the scam and him and the two other people started going crazy....a fight almost broke out.

3:09 that's how it work. they usualy make the game easy enough to make you think you can easily win

I feel scammed watching this video: I never got to see "how it works."

I enjoy your blogs interesting and entertaing .( Porwalk Tours , have a Christmas in Budapest blog )

At JFK now arriving in Prague tomorrow night……very excited. Hope to bump into you or catch a scammer. Thank you.

I saw it in Vienna and told one of the scammers which I thought was a bystander and said they were scammers, weren’t too happy with me

I think it's important to note that in versions where it would be possible to bet on the correct one (e.g. you know the trick and are able to follow the correct card) there are also tactics to stop you being able to place your bet on the correct card. It could be that another one of the team pretending to be a player will place a larger bet on another card, and the operator will say they have to take the larger bet.

This is so popular in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Common around sporting arenas

Cups and balls. Why does that remind me of a locker room?😂

You're a wizard! I saw the phone vanish into thin air. I'll not play Cups with you.

Saw that in London this Christmas and I knew it was a scam for sure because of you.

Just become good at slight of hand to slight a ball under a cup when you lift it. Win everytime or you bring your own ball

if you watch the game at 5:43 you'd notice the cap that supposedly has the coin has a distinctive scratch on it that the other two do not. so he actually did pick the correct cap. being as the caps are never turned over my guess is he has some way to pick up the caps that will hold on to the coin that is under all of them. so the scammer has complete control over where he makes the coin appear to be at all times, so if they want you to win while your making small bets to get you to bet bigger. they can, if they want you to lose to take your money they can regardless of if you pick the correct cap.

It’s dangerous advice telling people that they should alert others around that this is a scam. These scammers will not take kindly to having their money messed with and will get violent with you. Walk away and alert a cop, but never stand around telling other people it’s a scam - that’s a good way to get stabbed.

0:08 I love how you just see the phone vanishing under the hat^^ Kinda lame though that you never actually showed how it works, just that it works :( Well I guess showing how to do the trick would devalue it of some sort Edit: okay for bottle caps I'm pretty sure, there is a coin under each of them, because he never flipped the caps (magnet?) 9:14 you still see the object you lifted under the cup^^

ooh and the trading for the expired cash idea means they don't even need to cheat at the game, just make sure to take the money before starting the round. as any wins will be paid out in the defunct (fake) cash that doesn't cost the scammer anything. so it really doesn't how often the mark wins in that mode.

I almost fell for it in Paris when I was 16. We were walking around a touristic place with my girlfriend and we saw a group of people, so we went there to see what was going on. A guy was talking very loudly, doing this card trick and saying something like "follow the ball, follow the ball, come on, it's easy, place your bet". Then I saw a guy approaching him and put a couple of bills in front of a cup. The other guy lifted that cup, revealing that the ball was indeed under that cup and the guy won 2x the amount he had placed on the table (well, a cardboard, really). When I saw that, I immediately thought "wow, that was easy! Should I try?". He shuffled the cups again, doing his loud speech again and before I could get close enough to try my luck, someone else put quite some money in front of a cup. The guy lifted the cup and...empty! He quickly took the money, packed everything and left. That's when I (and everyone else watching) understood that the first guy was in on it.

At 5:45, sleight of hand or not, the coin ended up under a different bottle cap. There is a clear blemish on the top of the cap that initially covers the coin. That same cap ends up in the middle, but the coin is revealed under the left, DIFFERENT cap.

That must be the cup an ball torture I hear my friend talking about all the time.

How do teammates know what to pick when it is their "turn" to win big money in front of your eyes? Secret signs, gestures or coughing? Or does the result stays the same as when the game started, making an easy job for teammates?

Can you talk about the scam where they try to tie a red bracelet around you? We almost got scammed with that in Paris until my mom intervened and slapped their hands away.

Love it, always look that scam since kid on the street of my polish hometown in summer time, unbelieveble, we were as kids telling people that is bullshit and they still play, and i cannot say as a kid it was as funny as that video, na zdrowie! :)

Would be awesome to show exactly how it's done that way you can learn the moves and beat it

The fact that a scammer tries multiple ways to scam shows that a scam is profitable only to a certain point and the scammer needs to requalify.

3:09 This is where the trick happens. He has two beer coasters in his hand, the one with the X is at the bottom. He slams a coaster down to the ground and since the one with the X was bottom, your brain assumes that then one with the X was slammed down. But what really happened is he had a tight grip on the bottom coaster and the other one was just resting on top of it, so by making the slam movement, the top coaster actually fell to the ground. He then quickly put the one with the X in his hand on top of the third coaster to cover it from below, lifting both up again and turning them around but now the one with the X is on top and the third one covers it below. He then slams again and does the same trick a second time, so again the top coaster is slammed, not the bottom one, which this time is the X coaster, so even if you got the swap the first time, you may miss it the second one and still would have been wrong. The whole trick is, that every time he make such a double lift followed by a slam, he can decide which coaster to slam, the top one or the bottom one, by just slightly adjusting his grip, so as long as he thinks you are still following the correct coaster, he will keep going and do a few more of those double lifts until is is convinced that you've lost track.

I won $20 on this scam once. I knew all about how this scam works. The scammer wasn't too sharp. The card with the X on it had a slight blemish (dirt) on it. I bet on it and knew exactly where it was because of this. He had to pay up because there were a lot of people around here in NY. I quickly took the $20 and got in a cab.

3:26 damn, I caught the first top-deal but I missed the second one, I was guessing far right coaster but it was far left.

I used to watch cup and ball operators plying their trade on Westminster Bridge in London. I'm not sure uf they're still operating there. You can see the gang clearly running the scam with huge bills being exchanged for a correct guesses, but how anyone can't see it for what it is, is beyond me. You feel like you're surrounded in a danger zone if you're within a 5 metre radius of the cup and ball con artist.

This has been a known scan in Greece for almost a century. Usually done with cards, goal is to find the priest

dayum, your trick at the beginning is so well done. took me a bit to see it 👌

cheers!

The cup trick: They tilt the cup towards you while they move it and push the ball either of the table or in their sleeve. They are really skilled and if they do it like this u can try picking up the other cups.

Statistically you *can* win even more than once: If you internally consider it as a Monty Hall problem you can internally choose the one you think is correct, but knowing that you're being scammed is like the host asking you if you want to change your pick (well not really, because in the real Monty Hall problem the one you'd pick does actually have a chance to win), so you change your pick to one of the other 2 and you get a 50:50 chance of winning (if it was a real monty hall problem it'd be a 66% chance, but it's not) That will work exactly once, until the scammer figures out you're deliberately picking the "wrong" choice and they'll either stop playing or have their friends rough you up. In conclusion: Don't walk into this scam, even if you have a statistically better chance than someone who doesn't know it's a scam. You will still ultimately lose. If not your money at least your health.

Well to be honest gambling in general is a scam. "House always wins." Would rather sink my money into alcohol because least then there is a one hundred percent chance of getting that alcohol. The thing I paid for. Never liked gambling.

Oldest scams in history, that everybody knows about already. Or they should know.

I was a western movie where the hero was playing. He said: "I'll turn over the two shells where the pea is NOT." He did so and he won. The scammer didn't want to tangle with a well known tough guy.

The card trick is fair, it’s a 50% chance to win. So same conditions for both. Just focus on the card, he pretends to be the one with the X. But one or two times he throws the upper card on the ground, the tourist thinks, it’s the card on the bottom. So if you follow the one, he wants you to be pretending the one with X, choose one of the two others. So it’s a 50:50 chance.