Illegal status didn't quash the punchboards; the bartenders simply kept
them behind the bar. If a careful glance
around revealed no strangers, they were
brought out for regular customers.
One night a janitor at one establishment spent an entire shift punching
out every hole of every board at the
bar. He should have been cleaning up
instead of trying to clean up.
When most of a board had been
bought and the big prize was still
unclaimed, the board was typically
removed from play. It is a matter
of debate whether this was done to
prevent a winner or to conceal the fact
that there would have been no winner. One disgruntled customer, having
dropped quite a bit of money on losing
holes, stole the card, punched out all
the remaining holes and found there
hadn't been a winning spot on the
entire board.
In the end, a few customers won
and a lot lost. The businesses gener-
w w w. d i s t i n c t ly mo nt a na .co m
ally profited, as long as the punchboard salesman was honest. The fact
remains that punchboard or scratchoff, it's good to think of gambling
as an amusement, not a career. The
house always wins. And these days,
sometimes the senate.
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