A New Method for the Phone Roulette Magic Trick

The first magician I saw performing a Smash & Stab-style routine with a borrowed object was Max Somerset — a UK magician who performed the effect on television using a borrowed watch.

Since then, many magicians have done similar routines.

I’m sure Justin Willman was not the first to perform it with a borrowed phone, but he’s certainly played a big role in the phone version becoming so popular — mostly due to the name he gave the routine: “Game of Phones.”

It’s hard to beat a name like that.

At its core, the magician borrows a phone and places it inside an envelope. Then, more envelopes are introduced, each containing “dummy phones.” The envelopes are mixed, and one by one, the spectator chooses an envelope, and the magician or spectator smashes it with a hammer. The final envelope is opened, and inside it is the spectator’s unharmed phone.

Very often, the final envelope is opened, and the spectator's phone is not inside. Not to worry; the phone has teleported to an impossible location.

I’ve worked on several televised and live versions of this for well-known magicians and watched a great many variations performed in person.

The method I will teach here is unlike those previous methods, but it is a solution I came up with for the “problems” I often faced when working with clients on roulette routines with borrowed objects.

When there are effects I know I often work on with clients, I tend to spend some of my free time trying to reach good overall solutions.

With this method, the envelopes are freely chosen with no numbering. Wooden blocks are used in place of dummy phones, and at the end of the trick, the phone reappears in an impossible location of your choosing.

That’s really the problem this method aims to solve — usually, a roulette effect with an impossible ending requires two methods. This method actively aids with both the roulette element and the impossible-ending element.