Past tense of bunco: to cheat or swindle someone through a trick or scam.
From bunco (a confidence game), which originated in America in the 1870s. The exact origin is uncertain, but it may derive from Spanish 'banco' (bank) or possibly from Italian gaming terminology. The word spread as the con game became notorious.
Bunco was such a famous scam in the Old West that it became slang for any kind of fraud—con artists were literally called 'bunco steerers.' The word is a fascinating time capsule of American frontier crime.
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