Fantan

One million, four hundred thousand Portuguese patacas ($340,000) was the successful bid of a gaming syndicate last week for the 1931 fantan concession at Macao, "Chinese Monte Carlo."

As in the Principality of Monaco, citizens of this Portuguese "free port" (70 mi. south of Canton) pay no taxes. Day & night, year in, year out, Macao's fantan tables rattle ceaselessly with the "count" of the simplest game in the world.

Anyone wishing to play lays his stake on one of the figures. The banker then turns to a pile of beans or other small objects, scoops up roughly a handful, begins to count them out in piles of four. Obviously, the last pile counted must contain either four, three, two beans or one bean. To betters on the number which comes out, the banker pays triple the stakes laid on that number (i. e. stake 10, win 30). The banker pockets all other stakes.

There are few variations of the game. If players suspect a banker of palming beans, they may demand that he count more awkward objects, the fairest and most convenient being slender wooden sticks more than a hand's breadth long. A banker may allow staking between two numbers, paying even money if either number wins.

In Macao, brazen fantan syndicates have been known to deduct 25% of all bets before play begins as the bank's commission. Coolies are to fantan what black bucks are to craps.

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