Boardwalk Con Men Hit Hard By Sharp Decrease In Chumps

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ—According to a survey of confidence men released Tuesday, limited economic growth in the United States has led to a severe decline in the number of chumps, marks, and suckers ripe for the picking on the boardwalk. “A stagnant economy like this, I can’t get no one interested in the same old grift,” local sharpie Johnny Three-Cards said between unsuccessful attempts to hustle passersby into a pigeon drop. “On a good day, I reel in two, maybe three, patsies, tops. I honestly ain’t had a halfway decent swindle since that busload of rubes was up here from Nashville in June.” The survey also suggested that unless the economy soon showed signs of generating the disposable income required to sustain their flimflams, the whole lot of ’em was going to pull up stakes and take it down to Florida, where the chumps are a dime a dozen.