The Best Wikipedia Page: List of Confidence Tricks

Now that I’ve conned you into clicking on the article – I present to you the coolest/best Wikipedia page on the internet: The List of Confidence Tricks page. I don’t know what it is but the idea of con artists always intrigued me. Watching them in movies that is, actual con men can get fucked. Especially that dude that called me 5 times and told me he worked for the IRS and read off my address and told me I owed backed taxes (still a 25% chance that was real).

This wiki page provides detailed history of pretty much every con and it’s origins, it’s pretty awesome. Don’t have a the time to read through all of them? I’ll give you a shortened version of the top 5:

Top 5 Confidence Tricks

5. Pay up or be arrested scam – This one is pretty straight forward “to make this threat seem real, the caller ID identifies the caller as that of local law enforcement. Victims are told they must pay a fine to avoid arrest.” Listing this at 5 just gave me an excuse to post one of my favorite clips from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I will jam you from morning until night, you like getting jammed up? 

4. Three-Card Monte – Probably the most famous con trick (I could be conning you about this, but it sounds right). This video explains and demonstrates  it better than I ever could:

3. Fake casting agent scam – I think everyone is pretty familiar with this one… Seen a lot of videos involving this scam.

2. Fortune-telling fraud – “A gambler with bad luck,” yes, I’m listening. “The fortune teller informs the mark that they are the victim of a curse (I think I have this curse), and that for a fee a spell can be cast to remove the curse.” Even though I know this is a scam, I’m already losing enough gambling, it might be worth taking the… gamble.

1. Clip Joint or Fleshpot – “An establishment, usually a strip club, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return.” Uhh yeah this is just the definition of a bar or club. I’ve fallen for this scam since I turned 21 (I will say going to the bars before you were 21 was kinda awesome, you felt like the conman in that instance). But, you show up to the bar/club proceed to spend $250 and blackout, in the hopes that, that night you’d get lucky. Never worked for anyone, and if it did work for you, you must have been in on the scam. It wasn’t my fault it was the scams fault! Biggest legal con going. This isn’t me I swear:

Top 5 Con Artist Movies

It’s way more fun to watch con artists at work in movies than in real life – here are the top con artist movies: 

5. SGT. Bilko & Heartbreakers – Two movies come in at number 5, both were favorites of my childhood. SGT. Bilko is a Steve Martin classic, may not hold up today but still putting it here for sentimental purposes. Heartbreakers came out when I was 13-14 and it was… uhh life changing. Jennifer Love Hewitt was my #1 after Can’t Hardly Wait, but this movie just cemented that. May be NSFW.

4. Inception – Leo (my other #1), Christopher Nolan, this one is almost unfair to add to the list, it’s a con artist movie, wrapped in dramatic-thinking movie, wrapped in a time-dream. 

3. Ocean’s 11 – A classic, a super likeable cast and premise, a movie I think you can recommend to anyone. If you liked this also check out Logan Lucky which is basically a Redneck version of Ocean’s 11.

2. Lucky Number Slevin – Super underrated flick (and one that was panned by critics), it has an all-star cast, great story, will be a Rotten Tomatoes Variance blog shortly.

1. Catch Me If You Can – Leo (again), Steven Spielberg, a great (and true) story. Easily still the best con artist movie for my (potentially counterfeited) money.

Honorable mentions: Matchstick Men, Focus, Derailed, American Hustle, Confidence, Inside Man

Top Con Artist Books

Unfortunately I haven’t read too man books about Con Artists. I don’t want to lie to our thousands of readers. This is where you come in recommend us some good con artist books (preferably fiction)!  But ones I can recommend are:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (and it’s sequel Crooked Kingdom) – Great mix of adventure/treasure hunting/fantasy.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch – Basically an adult version of Six of Crows.

Like Con Artists and Confidence Tricks – any recommendations for books, movies, or other media? Let us know!