Capona

, (cat. No. 154191, US National Museum)

 
This game consists of counting off small shells in fours and betting on the remainder. The implements of the game consist of about seventy-five shells (Umbonium vestiarium Linn), a small china teacup, a piece of wood or a stick of cardboard marked with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and a curved slip of bamboo, twelve inches in length (figure 71).

The native marks the numbers on the ground by the wayside, and with his cup of shells by his side and his bamboo hook in his hand awaits his customers. The player lays his coppers on one of the four numbers, and the dealer, or banker, empties the shells upon the ground, covers them with the cup, and divides them into two unequal piles, allowing the player to select either pile.

This done, the dealer counts off the pile selected in groups of fours, using the hooked stick for the purpose to avoid the suspicion of a false count. If the remainder agrees with the number bet on, Mr. Webb says, the player receives the amount of his bet, otherwise he loses. Bets are limited generally to five coppers - equivalent to about six and a quarter cents of our currency.

 As the odds are three to one against the player, he should receive three times the amount of his stake when the number bet on remains. This game is identical with the Chinese game of fan t'an, in which Chinese coins or glass buttons are counted off from under a specially made brass cup with a straight rod of black wood, or, as the writer has seen among the Chinese in the United States, with a curved piece of bamboo identical with that used in the Philippine game.