Everyone is familiar with the story of Casey Jones who up at bat because of his massive ego deliberately let two strikes get by him before he (presumably) would made a home run, but he didn't. He struck out on
the last one.
"Pulling a Casey" in this case is used as an action of swindling. It simply means to deliberately flounder, mess up, or make deliberate mistakes in the beginning of a game to encourage
competitors and gamblers into thinking they have an easy win.
When in fact their opponent is
quite skilled in the area of interest and is waiting for real money to arrive before they show off their
incredible and stunning skill at the cost of everyone involved.
It's appropriate in settings of gambling like
playing pool or even the shell game.
In the shell game the dealer pulls a Casey with the new players by letting them win a couple of bucks by finding the pea easily enough under the shell.
But the dealer knows full well they're going to bet more and try to win more - and that's when the swindle comes in. Once they have won their confidence on how "easy" the game is.
Pulling a Casey in a game of table pool for instance can show a pool-shark deliberately make bad moves like miss sinking balls and even scratching the cue to encourage bets.
And then after a few bad shots once there is real money involved - that's when the shark plays for keeps and takes the
competitors and bets for all they are worth, hustling them for all their money.
