On the origin of the phraseological unit vteret’ ochki

Beginning with V. V. Vinogradov, is has been generally believed that the phraseological unit vteret’ ochki ‘to humbug smb.’ came from the gambling slang and means ‘to add points to the card using of sticky mixture and red or black powder’. We think that this hypothesis is not convincing for two reasons: 1) added points were not rubbed into, but sprinkled onto to the card, and 2) the phraseological unit vteret’ ochki occurs in literature not only in gambling contexts. We think that in this phraseological unit the verb vteret’ has the meaning ‘to put, to impose’, and the noun ochki has the meaning ‘glasses’, thus, vteret’ ochki means ‘to impose a false view (on smb.)’.