Fatal Faro Game Ends in Shootout
A friendship between two Spokane gamblers turned deadly during a dispute at the faro table.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Billy Fay and Jack Delmore quarreled early this morning while playing faro, separating with angry words. They met again about 7 o'clock this evening and opened fire on each other. Delmore was mortally wounded, dying an hour later at a hospital. Fay claims that Delmore opened fire on him, but bystanders say both men began shooting about the same time. The first two shots flew wild, but Fay's second shot struck Delmore in the side and passed clear through him. He then fell to his knees and fired his last shot at Fay, which also missed. Fay's third shot struck Delmore on the hand and he fell over on his face, but regained his feet and ran. Fay pursued his victim and endeavored to beat him with his revolver inside a saloon. When Delmore was taken to a hospital he asked that his shoes be taken off. 'Tell my folks,' he said, 'that I died happy, and that this was all a mistake.' The men had been great friends until this quarrel.
“Tell my folks that I died happy, and that this was all a mistake.”
Public shootings involving gambling debts or high-stakes disputes remain a tragic thread in urban crime reporting. While the legal faro parlors of 1892 are long gone, the violence born of volatile, unregulated cash environments echoes in contemporary concerns over illicit betting operations.
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