 Because sleeve garters are very much a part of the costume of contemporary barbershop music performance, an activity for which unimpeded manual dexterity does not play a vital role, the association between sleeve garters and the contemporary performance of turn of the 20th century music may have more to do with evoking the fashion of the era than with utility or a tradition begun at some later time.Today, sleeve garters are part of the costume of poker dealers and other card dealers in casinos.While this is widely understood to make it more difficult for the dealer to cheat by concealing a card in his sleeve, note that the sleeve garter is usually accompanied by a vest and bow tie (and sometimes a visor) suggesting that this usage, too, might hark back to late 19th and early 20th centuries fashion at least as much as it serves a real purpose.