Since at least 2013, a rumor has circulated online that illegal gambling dens in 18th-century England hired people to swallow
The claim has appeared on X, Facebook, Bluesky, trivia website Fact Republic and Reddit, where one thread was titled (detail in parentheses ours): "TIL [Today I learned] that, in 18th century England, gambling dens employed someone whose job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid."
In short, there is no credible evidence that 18th-century gambling dens employed dice swallowers to avoid police detection. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some newspapers reported hearsay that a small number of establishments in London did hire people to do this job, and such stories also fed into fictional works. However, due to the origins of the claim being shrouded in mystery and the difficulty of locating primary sources to prove its truth, we have rated this claim as a legend.
Snopes contacted published authors and university academics who have studied the history of gambling in the U.K. to ask if they had come across this rumor during their extensive research. We also asked how, in their opinion, this legend fits into the cultural context of widespread illegal gambling in the 18th century. We will update this story if we receive a response.
Rolling back the years
In the 1700s, gambling was ostensibly prohibited in England. King Henry VIII banned the activity for all but the nobility in the
(Unlawful Games Act 1541, Vlex)
Given gambling's illegality in England, its history is often opaque. Bob Harris' 2022 academic book "Gambling in Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century" — itself citing Gillian Russell's ideas in "'Faro's Daughters': Female Gamesters, Politics and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain" — says that "direct evidence for gambling is by its nature limited and highly selective" (see page 2).
A search of Newspapers.com produced no results between the years 1700 and 1800 for the terms "swallow dice," "swallow die," "dice swallow" or "die swallow." However, looking to newspaper archives for evidence of dice swallowers relies on the idea that such a job would have been recorded, upon its discovery, by police and subsequently reported by journalists, or that its existence would have spread by word of mouth to journalists.
Some newspaper reports in the late 1800s and early 1900s (the 19th and 20th centuries, not the 18th as noted in the claim) did mention dice swallowers. On May 22, 1889, a local English newspaper called
(Newspapers.com)
It also mentioned the presence of people employed to swallow dice, noting (emphasis ours):
In old times, it was almost as difficult to break into a gambling-house as to break its bank. The doors were of sheet iron, well guarded, and opened to a password known only to its habitués. Moreover when the police did get in there were not "fifty packs of cards" as in the modern instance, to tell tales of what was going on. Our gilded youth devoted themselves to hazard only; the "boxes" were destroyed at the first alarm, and one of the recognised duties of the groom-porter (who must have had a good digestion) was to swallow the dice.
In the context of the royal court, a groom porter was the official title for someone who saw to the King's lodgings and ensured the provision of tables and chairs as well as cards and dice when games were held in court. However, it was not possible to find an official definition for the role of a groom porter in the context of a gambling house.
On Dec. 24, 1909, another English local newspaper reported on the alleged presence of dice swallowers at gambling houses.
Excessive gambling has always been prohibited by law, and in the time of Henry VIII archery was the only game of any kind that was not unlawful. The Gaming Laws, says T.P.'s Weekly, are, of course, far stricter now than they were in the early years of the last century, but even at that time police "raids" on gambling houses were frequent enough, and it is said that at one or two of the West End establishments persons were retained "whose sole duty lay in being able to swallow the dice in case of a raid by the authorities."
(Newspapers.com)
The
(Newspapers.com)
However, none of these newspaper articles were published in the 18th century and it was not possible to corroborate their reporting. Therefore, it is impossible to say whether their reports were accurate.
John Eglin, professor of history at the University of Montana and author of the academic book "The Gambling Century," has researched the history of the activity from the Restoration to the Regency period. His work, published by Oxford University Press, examined why efforts to proscribe or regulate gambling were largely futile for so long.
He told us via email that in the later 19th century and earlier 20th century, there were regulations that might have galvanized determined gamblers to try to dispose of any evidence of their illegal dealings — however he did not mention coming across indisputable evidence of dice-swallowing in his research.
Eglin pointed to the 1845 Gaming Act which outlawed all games of chance played for money in public or private and accepted the presence of gaming equipment (such as dice, counters, cards, or wheels) as evidence of such unlawful gaming. He added that prior to that legislation, magistrates were reluctant to proceed unless law enforcement had actually witnessed gambling in progress.
"An additional incentive to dispose of evidence in this way was that if police could demonstrate that unlawful games were taking place on a premises," he added, "they were entitled to seize any cash found on tables or on the persons of anyone apprehended there."
Dice swallowing also cropped up in fictional books. British newspaper
(Newspapers.com)