Description

Fan-Tan, or fantan (simplified Chinese: 番摊;traditional Chinese: 番攤; pinyin: fāntān, literally "repeateddivisions") is a form of gambling game long played in China. It hassimilarities to roulette.

History
Fan-tan is no longer as popular as it once was, having beenreplaced by modern casino games, and other traditional Chinesegames such as Mah Jong and Pai Gow. However, it was once a favoritepastime of the Chinese in America. Jacob Riis, in his famous bookabout the underbelly of New York, How the Other Half Lives (1890),wrote of entering a Chinatown fan-tan parlor: "At the firstfoot-fall of leather soles on the steps the hum of talk ceases, andthe group of celestials, crouching over their game of fan tan, stopplaying and watch the comer with ugly looks. Fan tan is theirruling passion."
San Francisco's large Chinatown was also home to dozens of fan-tanhouses in the 19th century. The city's former police commissionerJesse B. Cook wrote that in 1889 Chinatown had 50 fan-tan games,and that "in the 50 fan tan gambling houses the tables numberedfrom one to 24, according to the size of the room."
Fan-tan is still played at some Macau casinos.
The game
A square is marked in the centre of an ordinary table, or a squarepiece of metal is laid on it, the sides being marked 1, 2, 3 and 4.The banker puts on the table a double handful of small buttons,beads, coins, dried beans, or similar articles, which he coverswith a metal bowl, or "tan koi".
The players then bet on the numbers, setting their stakes on theside of the square which bears the number selected. Players canalso bet on the corners, for example between No. 2 and No. 3. Whenall bets are placed, the bowl is removed and the "tan kun", orcroupier, uses a small bamboo stick to remove the buttons from theheap, four at a time, until the final batch is reached. If itcontains four buttons, the backer of No. 4 wins; if three, thebacker of No. 3 wins; if two, the backer of No. 2 wins and if onethe backer of No. 1 wins.