Cheating Rules in Gin Rummy

Gin Rummy Card Cheats

Gin Rummy is the card cheat's paradise. Because Gin is mostly a head-to-head game, it is more susceptible to chicanery than card games involving more than two players. Any player who becomes known as a "high-rolling Gin player" eventually attracts the card cheats as honey does the bees. The structure of Gin makes it easier to cheat than most other card games. And because the cheat usually clips his victim in privacy you seldom read or hear about a crooked Gin game.
I know of dozens of big-money Gin game in which a player lost $50,000 or more in the privacy of his own home or office. I know a New York City garment manufacturer who lost over a million dollars at Gin in a couple of years. Just how much of this was lost to cheats I don't know. But I do know that a nationally known (among gamblers) card cheat fleeced him out of $100,000 in a month's play in his private office. P.S. The manufacturer even served this invited guest refreshments. The best Gin players in the country doesn't stand a winning chance against even the average gin cheat. So if you want to play winning Gin you must first learn to protect yourself from the sharks.
I do not recommend that you regard all Gin players as crooks or potential crooks. The overwhelming majorities of Gin players are, or mean to be, honest. Most citizens are honest too, but we still need police forces and an FBI. And I think that a card player's equipment, especially if he plays for cash, should include a working knowledge of how to protect him self against the crook who believes that all honest players are chumps asking to be fleeced. I've already covered the basic card-cheating methods ; but certain larcenous techniques peculiar to Gin Rummy follow.

Bottom Stack

After a hand has been played and it is the cheater's turn to deal, he scoops up the cards and leaves an entire meld, usually four of a kind, on the bottom of the pack. Then he gives the pack a riffle shuffle that does not disturb the bottom four cards. He cuts about one third of the pack off the top, puts it on the bottom, and offers the pack to be cut. Most players cut at about the center. This puts the wanted meld near the top and each player in the deal receives two of the four of a kind! The cheat knows two of the cards in your hand, and you don't know that he has two of the same value. Later in the play you will, usually, discard one of those cards, giving him his meld. Or he will throw you one, proceeding to under knock your knock by laying off that fourth card on your meld.
This is one of the most common of all cheating devices in Gin, and one of the most effective, because it is impossible to accuse anyone of resorting to it. An honest player might even shuffle and cut the cards the same way without intending anything crooked.
You can protect yourself against the bottom stack by shuffling the cards before the dealer shuffles. If you use the Gin Rummy rules in Scarne on Cards, which permit this, neither you nor your opponent can be embarrassed if you ask for a shuffle whenever you please.

51-Card Deck

This may seem amateurish, but it is one of the most common and least hazardous bluff devices. When detected it can be made to look like an honest error. When he removes the new deck from the case, the cheat leaves one card behind. He knows what card that is. The advantage appears trivial. Is it? Let's see. Suppose the card left unnoticed in the box is the eight of diamonds. What can it do for him?