Shell Game Scam: How to Spot Tourist Traps on Westminster Bridge

On the Westminster Bridge – amidst the heaving, swelling waves of camera-wielding tourists, annoyed commuters, and languid policeman – are a few scattered groups crowding around. At first glance, they draw attention. What are they looking at? Maybe a street performer or protester?

In fact, they surround an Eastern European man playing a three card monte variation with two balls and three nutshells. He moves the balls around at lightening speed, all the while shouting out seemingly nonsense.

“Here is baall, here is baall. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2 ,3”.

A older woman throws down 50 euros and steps on a shell.

“Yes! Very good. You are winner”. He hands her back double.

He starts again. “1, 2, 3. Where iz baall? 1, 2, 3”. This time a balding, pudgy man in full track suit steps on a shell and hands the dealer 50 euros. He loses, but he shows no reaction to dropping a decent amount of money. The game continues like this perpetually.

50 feet away, another identical game is taking place. I start carefully watching, entranced by this strange and frantic public display. I notice that the crowd, constantly throwing around 50 Euro bills, is comprised completely of Eastern Europeans. They all speak in poor English and look roughly from the same ethnic group. I slowly start to figure out what’s going on here…

The Con

Obviously I know that this nutshell ball game is rigged so that the dealer always wins (or at least has the power to lose when strategically beneficial to him/her). It is a slight of hand trick that the dealers have mastered.

This video here demonstrates how the trick is done.

The part that takes me a moment to realize is that the crowd is in on it as well. They give the illusion of a fair game, as there are winners and losers, and the crowd size draws attention. The group is even made up of a range of gender and ages to give at least the barest semblance of objectivity. However, winning and losing among these people is simply passing money between one another. As long as they agree to split the profits, it doesn’t matter who holds their collective initial capital. At the end of the day, I imagine they share everything equally. The only real losers are the participants, who don’t stand a chance.

When I try to film this con game, they glare at me menacingly, wave their hands, and yell, “no picture!”, but I got away with one shot (above). In Berlin, by the East Side Gallery, I witnessed the exact same con, with seemingly, the same hodgepodge of vaguely Eastern European people. Do tourists really fall for this? In London I tolerated the con, which at best, adds to the overcrowding, and at worst, poses a threat to the intellectually challenged. But in Berlin I was quite annoyed! Here was one of the coolest open air galleries in the world, and all I could hear was, “where iz baaal?”