Fourteen-year old Stevie runs to the famous Barbershop. His furious mother has sent him to fetch his father away from barber Bouchard, who runs the illegal gambling den on the corner¹. She’s had enough. He’s betting away his longshoreman’s pay, again! There’ll be nothing left for rent, for groceries, for anything². Just wait ‘till he comes home. There’ll be hell to pay for this¹.

From the half-open door, a fascinated Stevie watches the men play Barbotte.

Players roll the dice and pick them up immediately, drop money on the table and roll them again, so fast he has trouble following the game. The dice roll and roll again. Players drop money again and again³. Unable to control themselves, they are gambling their shirts away⁴. Barbotte is an extremely fast game, that’s for sure. Everything happens in five minutes⁵. And the barbershop always takes its cut³.

Barbotte is a game of chance unique to Quebec; as popular as it is illegal¹, it has made Montreal famous since the 1920s⁶. Montreal, open city, North American capital of vice, nerve center of illegal gambling and hub of heroin trafficking⁷. But that’s another story…

Two years later, Stevie is now a longshoreman at Hangar 16, like his father and grandfather before him. And what do the men do around lunchtime? They play Barbotte, of course! It’s a very popular game at the port². Two teams of about five players face each other to gamble away big amounts². The H16 team against other teams of longshoremen, sailors, or soldiers. Sometimes they even play against the police¹!

The two teams are betting on the result of two rolled dice. Bets are won if the dice thrown by our team fall on double 3, double 5, double 6 or 6-5; Bets are lost if the dice fall on double 1, double 2, double 4 or 1-2. All other combinations are worthless⁸.

From the 20s to the 50s, whenever the guys from Hangar 16 lose a game, they throw away their unlucky dice in an old lunch box. After 30 years of Barbotte, this box holds a whole lot of dice! A real treasure of the longshoremen.