Conversations with Jack Farrell

Disclaimer: I'm no expert on dice, far from it, but everything I do know, I learned from the best dice hustler there ever was, Jack Farrell. His book, Fast Jack, The Last Hustler can be found online at all major book sellers.

The Last Hustler by John "Fast Jack" Farrell is not only a fun read, but is also loaded with essential information for anyone interested in learning the ins and outs of dice hustling. If you haven't read it, perhaps now is the perfect time to order a copy online.

When I first read the book, I quickly recognized that the book presented a kind of puzzle to solve and that it had all the answers I'd been looking for in my quest to learn about dice hustling, for many years. However, the information was spread throughout many stories and you needed to mine for it if you hoped to find the good stuff. But for anyone patient enough to do the work, that single book has enough info to get anyone started in understanding the ins and outs of dice hustling. I bought the book around 2016 and read it cover to cover three times, each time finding new details. After reading it once, I realized I needed to read again to take notes and over the course of reading the book two more times, I began slowly filling notebooks of my own, putting pieces of the puzzle together.

Before discovering Jacks book, I had found it difficult to find sources of information from which to learn about dice and where there was information, it was just a tidbit in some obscure book, or where it was sometimes more detailed, it was without enough context about how to set up and execute a game, and, in simple terms, get the money. Other books I'd found revealed bits and pieces of information on various gaffs and switches, gameplay basics and occasional stories, but the things I thought would be most useful to understand, were, until then, elusive.

In 2017 I learned Jack was giving a lecture online, where he planned to talk about his lifetime of hustling. After watching the lecture, I'd sent to him a copy of a short review I'd written about his lecture and I also ordered another copy of his book which I asked him to sign. When it arrived it included a note thanking me for the lecture review and, somewhat weirdly, seven dollars in cash. I didn't ask about the cash but much later I came to understand why he'd included it in his reply to me. I still have the seven bucks Jack sent to me. I wrote to Jack again shortly afterwards to ask about sources for buying some gaffed dice and although I didn't know it at the time, this would begin an unexpected and enlightening exchange that continued for the next year or so, between Jack and I. We wrote each other regularly, my (many) questions, Jack's generous answers.

Getting Started in Dice

In one of my first emails to Jack, I asked him to help me put together a set of dice for craps, or more specifically, a set containing the various gaffs needed to win the money. Evidently it was the right question to ask and while helping me put together the set, Jack would go on to fully outline which dice he used, the Why's and How's, and, well, everything I had initially set out hoping to learn. Not to mention, I was learning from the best dice hustler who ever lived!

It seemed to me that Jack not only enjoyed sharing his knowledge but also genuinely enjoyed meeting and learning about people. He was also a generous guy. Not just through sharing his knowledge. Yes, I bought several orders of dice from him, but he was more generous than he needed to be. He would sometimes offer to pay postage fees and also sent me many gifts from his personal dice collection. Jack was a good guy.

I think I read someone comment online somewhere that Jacks stories (in his book) were a bit repetitive. Personally, I could read those stories over and over, and although his writing sometimes took the long route, I really enjoyed the way he put a sentence together. It felt authentic to the world and era of gamblers Jack lived amongst. Just be thankful that his book went through an editing process, or it might have looked more like his emails where he wrote using his own brand of creative spacing and punctuation! Regardless, I enjoyed reading Jack’s messages which, it seemed to me, were just like listening to him talk.

The following excerpt is not a complete email but shares parts of an exchanges which I thought may be interesting to some folks here.

On working with magnets

"First, you are correct about neodymium, much too strong, they have no use in the dice world, Totally disregard them. For my application seen in the video, the correct magnet is alnico and only alnico. I found that the most efficient size is 8 to 10 inches long, when buying the alnico bars you would buy 4 bars 10 inches long and one inch square. you now put two bars together and duct tape them together and the same procedure with the other pair, You now have two bars , 10 inches long, two inches wide and one inch thick. You would have the bars magnetized in this way,,,---- upper five inches would be magnetized with a positive polarity and the bottom half being negative polarity.. or visa versa--- when you set them up at the dice table you must have the upper five inches above the surface of the table and the lower five inches will be below the surface of the table. Now,, two things are working for you once the dice come into the flux area,, the upper mag will be rejecting-----( pushing away the dice ) while the lower mag will be attracting or (pulling the dice),,, this magnetic reaction will give a more natural look to the rolling of the dice along with the effectiveness. Using two magnets, one on each thigh will give you much more area for the dice to perform correctly. Just off the top of my head I think the area will be about 20 inches wide and 6 inches deep from back board. Drugstore are much smaller thus more effective. The magnetized dice are in the white spots. I sent you a dice video of me demonstrating…”