Hustling
Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling (or gambling for higher than current stakes) with the hustler, as a form of confidence trick. It is most commonly associated with, and originated in, pool (and to an extent other billiards-family games), but also can be performed with regard to other sports and gambling activities. Hustlers may also engage in "sharking" – distracting, disheartening, enraging or even threatening their opponents, to throw them off. Hustlers are thus often called "pool sharks" (compare "card shark"). Professional and semi-pro hustlers sometimes work with a "stakehorse" — a person who provides the money for the hustler to bet with (and who may assist in the hustling) — in exchange for a substantial portion of all winnings. Another form of hustling (often engaged in by the same hustlers who use the skill-disguising technique) is challenging "marks" (swindle targets) to bet on trick shots that seem near-impossible but at which the hustler is exceptionally skilled.
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Famous quotes containing the word hustling:
“Night City was like a deranged experiment in Social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you’d break the fragile surface tension of the black market; either way, you were gone ... though heart or lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of some stranger with New Yen for the clinic tanks.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)