Cups and balls

The cups and balls is a magic trick with countless variations. Street swindlers once used gambling versions called Bunco Booths. A typical routine includes many core magical effects: balls vanish, appear, swap places, reappear, and change form. Essential skills like misdirection, manual dexterity, sleight of hand, and controlling the audience are also key. Because of this, mastering the cups and balls is often seen as the true test of a magician's skill with gimmick-based tricks. Magician John Mulholland wrote that Harry Houdini believed no one could be called a complete magician without mastering it. Professor Hoffman called it "the groundwork of all legerdemain." Instead of cups, performers may use bowls or hats. The shell game is a dishonest version of the cups and balls used as a confidence trick.

**History** The effect, known in Latin as *acetabula et calculi*, was performed by Roman conjurers two thousand years ago, as mentioned in Seneca's 45th Epistle to Lucilius. A popular picture, thought to date from 2500 B.C. on a tomb wall in Beni Hasan, Egypt, shows two men kneeling over four upside-down bowls. Early Egyptologists Wilkinson and Newberry took this as evidence that the cups and balls—or the related gambling trick thimblerig—might go back to Ancient Egypt. However, modern Egyptologists see it as a game using pots or cups, but the rules are unknown. The image is unique in Egyptian art, so whether it involved sleight of hand may never be known unless a future discovery provides more context.

**Performance and variations** The most common version uses three cups and three small balls. The magician makes the balls seem to pass through the solid cup bottoms, jump between cups, vanish from a cup and appear elsewhere, or disappear from various spots and reappear under the cups (sometimes the same cup). Routines often end with larger objects, such as fruit, bigger balls, small animals like baby chicks, or a mix of final loads. Many magicians use fruit because each piece is different in shape and size, adding to the surprise.

**Basic routine** The performer starts with three cups in a line and three visible balls. One ball is placed on top of the center cup, and the other two cups are stacked above it. With a tap of a wand, the cups are lifted to show the ball has "penetrated" the cup. The cups are set in a line again, the middle cup covering the ball that already went through. Another visible ball is put on top of the center cup, covered with the other two cups, tapped, and lifted to reveal the second ball has also penetrated. This is repeated with the third ball.

**Medieval cups and balls** In 1584, Reginald Scot wrote *The Discoverie of Witchcraft*, describing tricks with balls. He recommended using candlesticks with a hollow underneath, bowls, or salt cellar covers. He described a routine with three or four balls and as many covers: placing a ball under each cover, lifting them to show the balls gone, then having them all reappear under one cover. Although Scot explains a method, magicians consider it unlikely because some moves would be impossible to do invisibly.

**Indian cups and balls** In India, the cups and balls (called *Cheppum Panthum*) were performed seated on the ground, with the audience standing or in chairs around the performer. This unique viewpoint led to special sleight-of-hand moves. The cups were shaped like shallow bells, with a small knob handle on top, often held between the first two fingers. Because the cups were shallow, large items could not be produced at the end, so routines often ended with many same-sized balls. However, Shankar Junior would finish by producing black powder from one bowl. The number of cups and balls varied, from one to five balls and two to four cups.

**Owan To Tama** *Owan To Tama*, or "Turning of Bowls," is the Japanese version. The magician uses three bowls, traditionally four soft silk-covered balls, a fan, and three final productions—oranges, boxes, or sometimes cigarettes. The movements are based on Japanese classical dance. A display called *Owan-Gaeshi* shows the bowls empty by passing them from hand to hand in a dance-like way. The routine has a reverent, ceremonial feel. It was performed kneeling on the floor for a kneeling audience. Unlike other cups and balls routines, the Japanese magician usually worked indoors and to music.

**"Bean sowing"** The Chinese routine is often called "The Immortal Sowing Beans." It originated in ancient agricultural society before the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE), possibly as early as the Longshan culture period. Its name comes from the saying "Plant melons and you get melons; sow beans and you get beans." Props included a fan, a mat, two to six bowls, and three to ten beans. The most common variant used two bowls with three or five beans. The Chinese method is unusual because an extra bean or ball is rarely used, and it employs atypical ways of hiding the beans. Traditionally, the routine was performed on the ground.