Charles Miller

Charles P. Miller (c. 1851 – November 7, 1881) was an American gambler, confidence man and swindler. He was popularly known as "King of the Bunco Men", at times sharing that title with fellow tricksters Tom O'Brien and Joseph "Hungry Joe" Lewis, and ran one of the largest banco operations in the United States during the late 19th century. Biography Early life and criminal career Charles Miller was born to a county officer in Texas around 1851. Growing up during Reconstruction, he was said to be an unruly child due to "parental indulgence". By age 15, he had begun drinking heavily and had reportedly "fallen into bad company with both sexes". He was eventually disowned by his father and began "riding the rails" until arriving in New Orleans, Louisiana. Miller began working as a "capper" for Major S.A. Doran at his Royal Street gambling house and while there began learning confidence tricks and banco steering. When he had saved $35,000, he moved to New York City and opened a small gambling den which later became known as a notorious "skinning dive" in the city's underworld. Within a few years, Miller had organized a group con men who worked as banco-steerers and green goods men out of the Astor House and the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Miller became a familiar underworld figure and, according to popular lore, he kept his headquarters at "a lamp-post on the southwest corner of Broadway and Twenty-Eighth Street, against which he could generally be found leaning". Miller had originally arrived in New York and joined a "gambling clique" which had helped him in starting his gambling den. Once he had learned enough from them, he took another more knowledgeable partner and soon began competing with such leading swindlers as Joseph "Hungry Joe" Lewis and McDermott. Miller possessed a great deal of loyalty from his henchmen and, by directing his schemes though them, criminal prosecution against him was made extremely difficult. He also held a great deal of influence in the city legal system, due to his extensive police and political connections, which allowed considerable power to "pull the strings of the law when ever he so chose".