Being a marshal in a town like Wichita meant long hours and the risk of becoming dead at the hand or hands of those who made a career of flaunting the law. During its heyday Wichita had more than its share of those individuals. It took a strong man to face the daily dangers of the streets of Wichita and for very little pay.

As marshal, Wyatt Earp was just one of those men. Much has been said about Wyatt in books, magazines, and film and most of it was true, however some small points were left out such as how he supplemented his meager pay with other forms of income.

There was the levying of fines against those individuals for the apprehension and inconvenience of having to smack them along side of their heads with his pistol due to their uncooperative nature. The fine for this would be adjusted of course, to reflect the number of times they had to be hit on the head for Wyatt to get his point across and for their ultimate compliance. But this activity entailed a certain amount of risk on the marshal’s part so something less dangerous and more lucrative was desired.

Which brings us to Gambling. Wyatt definitely was involved with gambling as it was the easiest and least dangerous of his daily activities. It was also the most lucrative. Gambling in and of itself is not inherently dangerous, however it is terribly unforgiving of fools. And though fools did abide in great numbers in Wichita they mainly kept to doing things that were confined to the disadvantage of their ownselves and rarely involved great numbers of innocent bystanders. There were exceptions however, such as the half wit who got drunk and drove a team and freight wagon through a parade of temperance demonstrators, running over several of the ladies and scattering the rest like a flock of chickens because he didn’t like their singing. That was unfortunate but tensions ran high regarding that subject. There were fines aplenty for that little escapade.

However back to gambling. Wyatt’s favorite game of chance was the Faro table. He was good at it and it basically paid his wages during his term as marshal. Shown here, Wyatt sits at his Faro table, arms open and outstretched like a spider enticing its prey into its web. Both the wary and unwary entered willingly, ultimately offering up their hard earned gains to the game. It was rare that Wyatt ever to had to shoot some objectionable fellow in the eyeball during one of these games but as was mentioned before, fools did abide in plenty in Wichita and the unfortunate situation did develope occasionally, but not often as it was bad for business.