What is "razzle"

vb. To dazzle or disorient

n. any exciting and complex play intended to confuse (dazzle) the opponent [syn: razzle-dazzle, razzmatazz, razmataz]

Nicholas Dingley, alias Razzle (2 December 1960 – 8 December 1984), was the drummer of Finnish glam rock band Hanoi Rocks from 1982 until his death.

Razzle may refer to:

• Razzle (game), a carnival game
• Razzle, the precursor to the band Lit
• Razzle (musician) (1960–1984), former drummer of Hanoi Rocks
• Razzle (magazine), a British soft porn magazine that specialises in naked photos of readers' wives and girlfriends
• Razzles, a type of candy
• Razzle, the fictional dog in the BBC children's television series Jonny Briggs

Razzle is a British soft porn magazine, founded in 1983, published by Paul Raymond Publications. It currently focuses on the girl-next-door style pornography, offering cash for any photos of "readers' wives" printed; in the past, however, several notable glamour models were featured, including minor celebrity Joanne Guest. It also includes the traditional "true" stories.

There was an earlier UK men's magazine of the same title that dates from the 1930s to the late 1950s. This was a pocket format title, which featured a colour centre spread by the illustrator George Davies. This men's magazine was later immortalised in the Ian Dury song Razzle In My Pocket (1977, the 'B' side to Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll), a story of a boy trying to steal a copy of said magazine from a bookshop. The song also appears on the 1981 compilation LP Juke Box Dury (side 1, track 6).

The name Razzle gains a fair bit of mainstream attention, having been mentioned on numerous British comedy programmes, including Meet Ricky Gervais, Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, and in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous where it is implied that Patsy once posed for the magazine (albeit in the early 1970s). It is also mentioned in Men Behaving Badly and Bottom, and in Little Britain, when Lou buys the magazine for Andy. The razzle stack is the way ladies were stacked four high, normally with a pint of Guinness rested to the side.

Despite the market for softcore pornography decreasing in the UK, presumably due to a combination of the internet, and more extreme material being available, Razzle is still successful, having launched some spin off titles including Razzle Extreme, The Best of Razzle, Razzle Readers Wives and Razzle DVD. Razzle does however offer hardcore imagery and videos of the photosets found in its magazines online, on the official Paul Raymond website.

Razzle is published by Paul Raymond's publishing house, whose other publications include Club International, Escort, Mayfair, Men Only and Men's World. All of the Paul Raymond magazines are widely available in newsagents, although some larger retailers require a modesty bag in order to protect minors from seeing gratuitous flesh on display on the cover. As from 2013, the magazines are also available in digital format exclusively on the Paul Raymond digital newsstand.

Razzle is a game sometimes presented on carnival midways and historically, in the casinos of Havana, Cuba. The game is also known as Razzle-Dazzle. This generic name is seldom known to players, as it is generally presented as Football, Ten Points Win, Baseball, Mo-Co, Indian Poker, Cajun Bingo or other name selected to generate interest for the locals. According to gaming expert Darwin Ortiz, the Razzle is seldom, if ever, run honestly. The nature of the game makes it a particular money-maker for dishonest carnies.

Razzle consists of a playing board with numbered holes, averaging 120, upon which eight marbles are spilled from a cup. The numbers are added to a total and that total is displayed on a chart, that looks something like a calendar, with the value for that number displayed beneath it. In most Razzle set-ups, the player must bet one unit (dollar, pound, Euro) per roll, and must keep rolling until he achieves 10 points. The player does not "lose" until he walks away, but in reality the player loses the minute he steps up to the game, as the game is almost always played dishonestly.

The points per number chart is the secret. The numbers most likely to come up are worthless or only indicate that you have to double or increase the bet. Most dishonest razzle games also rely on a fast count by the game operator to trick the player into believing he has a better number total than he actually rolled. This is used to keep the player hooked into the game, increasing his point total periodically, causing him to invest more and more into the game. Increasingly the player believes that walking away would be a disaster; he only needs one or two more points. Unfortunately for the player, he never actually gets that last point. According to Darwin Ortiz, most Razzle operators are not satisfied until they get their mark's last dollar.

Even if the game were run honestly, the mathematical nature of the razzle board makes it entirely unlikely that a player would ever win before running out of money, or that the prizes won would ever equal the amount of money spent chasing them.

Another feature of the game is that more than one prize can be won in a game. All the player must do is score a certain number to win additional prizes. The flattie running the game, however, usually states that for every additional prize the player is aiming for, he must make another bet. In most cases the extra prize is just an excuse for the operator to hustle the player's money more quickly.

The Razzle is such a devastatingly effective scam that some crooked-booth operators have been known to even abandon their store's theme and bring out the razzle.