There was a pub in Melbourne called The Nord where I used to hangout with the university students from my dorm. In my quest for scoring free drinks and getting to know new people in rowdy environment, I developed a cheap "magic" routine which had a 100% success rate. It's quite easy to do, but there's a huge assumption to the trick - the crowd is halfway tipsy, only waiting to be shocked by the grand finale. It involves a simple sleight-of-hand that doesn't require any intense practice.
Here's the setup:-
Get yourself a deck of cards - make sure it's the kind with two primary colours instead of four for each symbol (Hearts, Spades, Clubs, Diamonds).
Select any two cards that doesn't contain the same number, both with different colours - this is set A. (Example: Ace of Spades, and Ten of Diamonds)
Find the same two cards in set A, but of course, with different symbols but the same colour set - this is set B. (Example: Ace of Clubs, and Ten of Hearts)
Place cards in set A on the top-most and bottom-most positions in the deck of cards.
Show your audience cards from set B, requesting them to remember the cards.
Instruct one member of the audience to insert cards from set B anywhere in-between the deck of cards.
Shuffle the deck yourself in front of the crowd. Maintain both top-most and bottom-most cards from set A in the same position while shuffling. This is quite easy to do with some practice. Try not to look at the cards at all.
Once shuffling is done, pinch the stack of cards with your thumb and the rest of your fingers just like the image below. Thumb firmly at the bottom of the deck, and the rest on top of the deck.
- Assume God of Gambler's posture and look at whoever you wanna to look at.
- Prepare to throw and scatter your deck of cards. At this point you can throw them up in the air to rain confetti, or direct them like a bullet train towards the alpha male of the crowd, if any. The trick is to keep the pinch while squeezing out the deck of cards. During launch sequence, you can also add some wrist-flicking, torso-turning, and finger-fanning for added effect. The point is to make it a messy scene with cards flying all over, except for the top and bottom cards that you were pinching.
Perform your signature flair, and show the last two cards in your hand. Much wow. Hopefully they wouldn't notice the same-same, but different cards.
Claim your free drinks for the clown show! Remember to clean up the mess.