10 Quick Tips on How to Hustle

You can turn almost anything into a hustle if you have a talent for it - pool, darts, poker, video games…if your skill exceeds the norm, that’s what you build your hustling operation around.

Unless you’re the luckiest person alive, you can’t hustle anyone at something you’re not good at. Spend time practicing the skill you plan to hustle on; if it’s a sport or hobby make sure you can beat almost anyone you play at it. Master seemingly impossible one-off trick shots as people will often comfortably bet against you achieving them.

Are you going solo or does your plan involve having other people “in the know”? Solo is more flexible and reduces the chance of someone giving the game away, however a group play is much more difficult for other people to detect and having a partner can help set the scene. If things go wrong, having someone by your side is also good backup.

A mark, a target, an unsuspecting sucker…whatever you wish to call the people you want to hustle make sure to choose them carefully. For any hustle, finding someone who is susceptible to suggestion is a great starting point. If you’re running a pool hustle, finding someone who is slightly inebriated is an even better starting point!

The point of most hustles is to disguise your skill and lure the mark into a false sense of security. If you’re armed to the teeth with the latest gear and equipment it makes people less likely to bet against you winning. If pool’s your hustle, grab an old beat-up looking cue stick and make people believe you haven’t got a clue. If you’re very clever, you could make a good quality cue stick look old and worn...now that’s a win win.

Looking the part is one thing, acting the part is another. You need your mark to truly believe they can beat you and are willing to wager a bet against it. Try acting tipsy, unintelligent or just generally clueless and remember, when you pull the hustle off don’t act cocky! Instead look surprised and bewildered by your incredible “beginner’s luck.”

When you’re finally engaged in the hustle, the aim at the start is to build the confidence of your mark. In a pool or card hustle, you can’t do that in one game or hand. You need to play and lose a couple of “low wager” competitive games (i.e. for a beer or small cash equivalent) or if betting on trick shots, intentionally miss a few attempts in a row. The aim is to buildup the confidence of your mark so that they soon believe money can be taken easily from you. When your opponent is suitably overconfident, you raise the stakes, win the game and take home the larger wager.

There’s a reason hustlers have become known as “sharks” (card shark, pool shark etc) as they often engage in the act of “sharking,” which is the instigation of various distracting, enraging or disheartening tactics with the ultimate goal of throwing the opponent off their game. Whilst these actions may be considered unsportsmanlike, a hustler’s ultimate goal is to win when the big chips are down and they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

You can’t keep running the same hustle in the same place over and over again and expect to keep getting away with it. A good hustler knows when to move on and find a new place to run their scheme. And remember, never run a hustle on the same person, you need a good memory for faces to be an accomplished hustler.

Often or not gambling in certain areas is forbidden, so before you set your hustle in motion make sure you understand the local rules and restrictions.