The Plush or the Flash

I love jargon. I picked up a few new terms from this book review in the NY Times by Wiliam Grimes of Peter Fenton's Eyeing the Flash : The Education of a Carnival Con Artist.

Then there's the mysterious football game in which players roll dice to move down the field, advancing rapidly at first, but, strangely enough, after investing more and more money, always getting stopped at the one-yard line. The reason is simple. The numbers on the dice can never add up to the right combination. The football moves up the field quickly at first because the carny running the game rapidly totals the dice incorrectly, in the player's favor. Later, at crunch time, he adds the numbers slowly, and correctly. Prizes, also known as the plush or the flash, generally cost less than the price charged to play a game.

My younger brother Ryan was a carnie for a brief spell after prep school and before training as a piercer.