Short for long confidence game - an elaborate scheme that requires time to pull off. Compared to short con like the simple wallet swap that Redford pulled off in the beginning of the movie. In general con or confidence game requires the duped to trust the perpetrator, which makes the scheme possible. The ultimate con is for the duped to not even know he or she was duped.
That’s what Bernie is trying to pull off on Americans, until it’s too late.
Thank you...I am ashamed to tell you how many times I have watched that movie and still don’t understand everything that took place...It was the outside characters - the woman with the gun in the alley, the government men in the old building that came into the “casino” at the end etc., that I couldn’t get but that’s OK....don’t try to explain it to me...