To play against the bank at faro.
1851. Simon starts forth to fight the “Tiger.”—Heading of chap. iv., J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., Phila.
1857. See Appendix X.
1852. [They] never went to be at all, but on their return from ‘fighting the tiger,’ bathed, changed their linen, and came down to the breakfast-room, taking the night’s sleep for granted.—C. A. Bristed, ‘The Upper Ten Thousand,’ p. 127 (N.Y.).
1852. Such is ‘the tiger,’ as the faro-table is called at the Springs: why, I never could learn.—Knick. Mag., xl. 317 (Oct.).
1853. I’ve broke Budd’s, and shut up his ‘tiger’ for this night at least.—S. A. Hammett (‘Philip Paxton’), ‘A Stray Yankee in Texas,’ p. 217.
1857. See Appendix X.
1863. At night [in Denver] you have a choice of two theatres, perhaps a dance, a game of billiards, ten pins, a social visit,—most anything, even to bucking the tiger, which we wouldn’t advise any one to do.—Rocky Mountain News, Jan. 29.
1865. Many penniless fellows, “dead broke” from repeated fights with the “tiger,” stand near and eagerly watch the games for hours in succession.—‘Southern Hist. Soc. Papers,’ iii. 45 (Richmond, Va., 1877).
1870. In the United States the operation of staking one’s money in a gaming hell is called ‘Fighting the Tiger.’—Rae, ‘Westward by Rail,’ p. 244 (Lond.).
1910. Keliher so dominated Coleman, that the latter could not resist numerous inducements to “buck the tiger” in New York, despite the fact that losses were continuous.—N.Y. Evening Post, May 19.
