Rope

You carry a rope in your pocket (French). Said of a person very lucky at cards, from the superstition that a bit of rope with which a man has been hanged, carried in the pocket, secures luck at cards.

“‘You have no occupation?ʹ said the Bench, inquiringly, to a vagabond at the bar. ‘Beg your worship’s pardon,ʹ was the rejoinder: ‘I deal in bits of halter for the use of gentlemen as plays.ʹ”—The Times (French correspondent).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.