Aah, the shell game. Many of us probably fell for this timeless scam in the schoolyard (I can think of a certain boss who once lost $50). Yo was in for a treat on Saturday afternoon around 2:45 p.m. when we encountered some passengers getting a bit of a shellacking on a red line train to Howard. As is usual, several passengers seemed to be making easy money, so one hapless guy bet the farm and, not surprisingly, lost. Yo decided we’d seen enough and wondered what would happen if we took out our camera and made a little movie.
Shortly after we started filming, some of the passengers who were having so much success in the game alerted the scam artist to what we were doing and he aggressively confronted us, saying we weren’t allowed to film him. We did stop the camera because we didn’t want to have to pay to replace it, but we also pointed out that his little game was being played on CTA property and we could do what we damn well pleased. Interestingly, the guy jumped off the train at the next stop. By coincidence, one of the passengers on the train, who was enjoying an incredible winning streak, also got off the train.