Dealing seconds, bottoms and centres: false deals explained

A false deal looks exactly like dealing from the top of the deck, but the card that lands comes from somewhere else: second from the top, the bottom, or the middle. These moves come from card cheating, and they were exposed in classic books by Robert-Houdin, Maskelyne and Erdnase. They are advanced sleights that take a long time to learn, and in magic they belong in demonstrations and tricks, never in a real game.

Why would a magician deal from the wrong place?

Dealing is one of the most trusted actions at a card table. Everyone assumes the card in front of them came off the top. A false deal borrows that trust: the motion looks ordinary, but the dealer decides which card goes where.

That is why these moves matter to card magicians, even ones who never plan to use them. They turn up in gambling demonstrations and in tricks where a card refuses to leave the top. T. Nelson Downs, writing in The Art of Magic (1909), called second dealing “a sleight that has been sadly neglected by conjurers, and which can be used to great advantage in magic.”

What are second, bottom and centre deals?

All three are false deals: techniques that appear to deal cards fairly when the cards delivered are actually chosen by the dealer.

• The second deal (or “dealing seconds”) secretly deals the second card from the top. The top card stays where it is, ready to be dealt whenever the dealer wants it.
• The bottom deal secretly deals the bottom card while appearing to deal from the top. The Greek deal is a variation of it.
• The centre deal takes a card from the middle of the deck. It is rarely used.

These are old moves. Card cheats used them long before magic books described them, and references to dealing from the bottom and the centre go back to a French book on games of chance from 1550. In Card-Sharpers: Their Tricks Exposed (1863), Robert-Houdin calls the second deal “drawing the card” and calls the cheats themselves “Greeks”, explaining how the word Greek had become a synonym for a sharper.

How do false deals work?

We will stay at the level of principle here, because these are cheating techniques first. The idea is simple: a small secret action hides inside a larger honest one, and the rhythm never changes.

For the second deal, published sources describe two main families. In the strike second, the thumb pushes the top card over and the dealing hand takes the second card instead. In the push-off second, two cards are pushed over almost perfectly aligned, and the second is drawn out while the top card slides back. Robert-Houdin says the whole substitution must happen “with the rapidity of lightning,” with a small movement of the holding hand to cover it.

A second deal is only useful when the dealer knows the top card. Erdnase, in The Expert at the Card Table (1902), says it “is employed almost exclusively in connection with marked cards.” The bottom deal works differently: the dealer keeps wanted cards on the bottom and takes them from there on the right rounds.

What ties all three together is consistency. As Erdnase puts it, “a single irregular movement, or a moment’s hesitation, may ruin the play.”

When do magicians use them?

• Gambling demonstrations. Dealing a winning hand to yourself, or to a spectator, while everything looks fair is the classic use in performance.
• Keeping a card on top. Maskelyne describes an expert who “will place a known card on top of the pack and deal the whole of the other cards from beneath it.” Robert-Houdin tells of a cheat who did the same with the king of spades and admits he “could not detect one of those changes.”
• Repeated showings. Downs describes a routine where the same card seems to turn up again and again, built on second dealing.

A word on ethics. Learn these moves to entertain, never to win money, games or bets. Using them in a real game is cheating, plain and simple. Even the gamblers knew how it ends: in Sharps and Flats (1894), Maskelyne quotes a professional on second and bottom dealers: “These men always get caught in the long run.” Perform them where everyone knows it is a show.

How do you learn false deals?

Be honest with yourself about the difficulty. Erdnase wrote that becoming adept at second dealing “is as difficult a task as can be given in card handling.” Maskelyne, eight years earlier, called the same move “very easily learned.” We side with Erdnase: getting the action is quick, but making it invisible is not.

1. Master the honest deal first. Your false deal has to hide inside your real one, so the real one needs a steady, relaxed rhythm.
2. Learn to get cards into position. A false deal has nothing to deliver until you can control a card to the top or bottom. Our guide to card control techniques covers that groundwork.
3. Start with seconds or bottoms, not centres.
4. Mix fair and false deals. Deal several cards honestly, then one false, without any change in posture or speed.
5. Film it and listen. Watch the top card and the edges, not your face, and listen for any change in sound.

If you are newer to cards, start with simpler sleights. Our article on whether card magic is hard to learn gives a realistic timeline.

Which products help you learn false deals?

• The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase (free ebook). It teaches the shifts, blind shuffles, palms, bottom deals and table work of the professional card handler, then the conjuring tricks built on them.
• Sharps and Flats by John Nevil Maskelyne (free ebook). A full exposé of the card sharp’s methods, from marked cards and stacked decks to holdouts, written to protect players.
• Card-Sharpers: Their Tricks Exposed by Robert-Houdin (free ebook). He explains how cheats work, from the pass and the stock to prepared packs, including his chapter on drawing the card.

Read them as history and theory: they describe cheating, not performance.

What are the most common mistakes?

• Changing pace on the false deal. A slower or faster card is the biggest tell. Every card should leave the deck the same way.
• Making a different sound. Maskelyne notes that a bottom deal can be detected by “a slight click.” If the false card sounds different, people notice even if they cannot say why.
• Ignoring the card backs. Solid colour backs hide a second deal well, while strong white borders make movement easier to spot. Practise with the deck you will actually use.
• Skipping the basics. Trying centre deals before you can hold a clean dealer’s grip leads to frustration.
• Using it in a game. Keep false deals for performance.

Frequently asked questions