When accomplices are employed, they are known as shills.Ī short con or 'small con' is a fast swindle which takes just minutes, possibly seconds. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, stooges, mugs, rubes, or gulls (from the word gullible). Ī confidence trick is also known as a con game, a finesse, a con, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko (or bunco), a swindle, a flimflam, a gaffle, or a bamboozle. The National Police Gazette coined the term 'confidence game' a few weeks after Houston first used the name 'confidence man'. Although Thompson was an unsuccessful scammer, he gained the reputation as a genius operator mostly because Houston's satirical tone was not understood as such. Reporting about this arrest, James Houston, a reporter for the New York Herald, publicized Thompson by naming him the 'Confidence Man'. A few people trusted Thompson with their money and watches. Thompson was a clumsy swindler who asked his victims to express confidence in him by giving him money or their watch rather than gaining their confidence in a more nuanced way.

William Thompson (1821–1856) was the original 'confidence man'. The shell game dates back at least to Ancient Greece. The perpetrator of a confidence trick (or 'con trick') is often referred to as a confidence (or 'con') man, con artist, or a ' grifter'. Synonyms include con, confidence game, confidence scheme, ripoff, scam, and stratagem. intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial', as they 'benefit con operators ('con men') at the expense of their victims (the ' marks')'.

Researchers have defined confidence tricks as 'a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct.

Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Political cartoon by JM Staniforth: Herbert Kitchener attempts to raise £100,000 for a college in Sudan by calling on the name of Charles George GordonĪ confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. For other uses, see Con Man, Con artist (disambiguation) and Scam (disambiguation). For counterfeits, see Counterfeit consumer goods.

Trickster meaning