The article provides information on confidence games or con for short as tackled by sociologist Erving Goffman in his paper "On Cooling the Mark Out: Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure." It is described as the interaction of three persons, namely the con artist or operator, the con's victim, and the cooler. The topics discussed include an explanation of cooling, the difference between the con and other types of financial deceit, and the conditions that make the con possible.