Monte Bank

Monte Bank, also called Mountebank, Monte, or Spanish Monte, is a gambling card game played with a “Spanish deck”—a standard 52-card deck with the eights, nines, and 10s removed (making 40 cards). Less frequently played at home, it is usually played in gambling establishments, where a house dealer takes the role of the banker, dealing a top and bottom layout of two cards each face-up on the table. Players then wager on the top or bottom, and the deck is flipped over to reveal the bottom card, or Gate. If the Gate is the same suit as the top or bottom, the banker pays out those bets, while collecting on the others.

As a gambling establishment game, the odds work out well. No player is taking a significant risk, and most of the money passes back and forth between players, with the banker as a middleman. Frequently enough, both top and bottom will lose, providing a big collection for the banker, to make the game profitable for the house. There is no particular strategy to the game, which is little more than chance. Its popularity in the United States began with the prospectors during the Gold Rush of 1849, who had significant capital and few assets or expenses.