Editing Shell game (section)

==History==
[[File:Conjurer Bosch.jpg|thumbnail|''The Conjurer'', painted by [[Hieronymus Bosch]]. The painting accurately displays a performer doing the [[cups and balls|cups and balls routine]], which has been practiced since Egyptian times. The shell game does have some origins in this old trick. The real trick of this painting is the [[pickpocket]] who is working for the conjurer. The pickpocket is robbing the spectator who is bent over.]]
The shell game dates back at least to [[Ancient Greece]].<ref>"Shell Game." Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/539702/shell-game</ref> It can be seen in several paintings of the European [[Middle Ages]]. Later, [[walnut]] shells were used, and today the use of bottle caps or matchboxes is common. The game has also been called "thimblerig" as it could be played using sewing thimbles. The first recorded use of the term "thimblerig" is in 1826.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of THIMBLERIG |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thimblerig |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref>

The swindle became very popular throughout the nineteenth century, and games were often set up in or around traveling fairs. A thimblerig team (comprising operator and confederates) was depicted in [[William Powell Frith]]'s 1858 painting, ''[[The Derby Day]]''.  In Frith's 1888 ''My Autobiography and Reminiscences'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Frith |first1=William Powell |title=My Autobiography and Reminiscences |date=2012 |orig-date=1887 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139343923 |isbn=9781139343923}}</ref> the painter-turned-memoirist leaves an account of his encounter with a thimble-rig team (operator and accomplices):

{{poem quote|My first visit to Epsom was in the May of 1856 – Blink Bonnie's year. My first Derby had no interest for me as a race, but as giving me the opportunity of studying life and character it is ever to be gratefully remembered. Gambling-tents and thimble-rigging, prick in the garter and the three-card trick, had not then been stopped by the police. So convinced was I that I could find the pea under the thimble that I was on the point of backing my guess rather heavily, when I was stopped by [[Augustus Egg]], whose interference was resented by a clerical-looking personage, in language much opposed to what would have been anticipated from one of his cloth.

"You," said Egg, addressing the divine, "you are a confederate, you know; my friend is not to be taken in."

"Look here," said the clergyman, "don't you call names, and don't call me names, or I shall knock your d –– d head off."

"Will you?" said Egg, his courage rising as he saw two policemen approaching. "Then I call the lot of you – the Quaker there, no more a Quaker than I am, and that fellow that thinks he looks like a farmer – you are a parcel of thieves!"

"So they are, sir," said a meek-looking lad who joined us; "they have cleaned me out."

"Now move off; clear out of this!" said the police; and the gang walked away, the clergyman turning and extending his arms in the act of blessing me and Egg.}}

Fear of jail and the need to find new "flats" (victims) kept these "sharps" (shell men or "operators") traveling from one town to the next, never staying in one place very long. One of the most infamous confidence men of the nineteenth century, [[Soapy Smith|Jefferson Randolph Smith]], known as Soapy Smith, led organized gangs of shell men throughout the mid-western United States, and later in [[Alaska]].

Today, the game is still being played for money in many major cities around the world, usually at locations with a high tourist concentration (for example: [[La Rambla, Barcelona|La Rambla]]<ref>"The Rambla of the Thimbleriggers." Baquero, Camilo S. Translated from the Spanish by Summer Fingersmith. El País. http://www.robbedinbarcelona.com/2011/04/23/the-rambla-of-the-thimbleriggers/</ref> in [[Barcelona]], [[Gran Vía (Madrid)|Gran Via]] in [[Madrid]], [[Westminster Bridge]] in [[London]], [[Kurfürstendamm]] in [[Berlin]], [[Bahnhofsviertel]] in [[Frankfurt am Main]] and public spaces in [[Paris]], [[Buenos Aires]], [[Benidorm]], [[New York City]], [[Chicago]],<ref>{{cite web|author=share |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/13w1fk/i_saw_a_fascinating_scam_on_the_red_line_today/ |title=I saw a fascinating scam on the Red Line today. You should probably not play this game (unless you are the first) : chicago |publisher=Reddit.com |date=2012-11-27 |access-date=2017-01-02}}</ref>  and [[Los Angeles]]). The swindle is classified as a [[confidence trick]] game, and illegal to play for money in most countries.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

The game also inspired a [[List of The Price Is Right pricing games#Shell Game|pricing game]] on the game show ''[[The Price Is Right (U.S. game show)|The Price Is Right]]'', in which contestants attempt to win a larger prize by pricing smaller prizes to earn attempts at finding a ball hidden under one of four shells designed to resemble walnut shells.  While the ball is not shown during the game, and the host shuffles the shells before the start of the game, contestants can win by either winning all four attempts or winning enough attempts (via big "chips" to mark the shells), and picking the one that has the ball.  The shuffling is only allowed before the pricing part of the game begins, and once the first small prize is announced, no further shuffling is permitted.  Federal game show regulations are designed to ensure the game is legally a game that can be won.