could be carefully noted; occasionally there would be no play at all at
one table, the whole crowd staking on a run at another; as the room was
small, anything of the sort soon reached the ears of every one. Play as
a rule was high, and the players, for the most part, were well used to
gambling. The results to the bank were most disastrous. On a certain
evening it lost more than had ever before been lost in one day by the
Casino, and at the end of the year the accounts of the "Cercle Privé"
proved anything but an agreeable study for the officials supervising
the finances of the great gambling monopoly.
The next year it was closed, and there has since been no inclination
on the part of the authorities to repeat what was to them a very
unprofitable speculation.
Amongst various causes which in this instance operated to the detriment
of the bank was the difficulty, generally amounting to impossibility,
of players obtaining a further supply of money when what they had in
their pockets had run out. At such a late hour, when the Bank was
closed and the _caisse_ of most hotels shut up, no matter how rich a
man might be, he could not obtain any considerable amount of cash.
Consequently, should he lose what he had brought with him, he was
reduced to playing with such modest sums as could be borrowed from
friends, who naturally could not be expected to make any substantial
advance, as any moment they themselves might be in a similar
predicament.
The bank, on the other hand, was equipped with ample funds, and its
loss--unlike those of the players, which, after a certain point,
were limited by necessity--often extended into a very large figure;
consequently, when it was in good luck, it only won a comparatively
moderate amount, and when in bad lost very heavily.
Another reason for the ill-success of the bank was that the
policy pursued in the large rooms downstairs had in the case of
the "Cercle Privé" been exactly reversed. In the former there
have always been many more roulette tables than tables devoted to
trente-et-quarante--upstairs there was only one roulette table as a
counter-attraction to the three devoted to the rival game.
Trente-et-quarante is mathematically one of the most favourable of
games at which a gambler can play, the percentage against him produced
by the _refait_ being only 1·28 per cent.
Roulette, on the other hand, is, owing to the zero, highly advantageous
to the banker.
The bank's percentage on all-round play at the tables is more than
one-seventy-fourth of all the figures staked; the actual winnings of
the bank being about one-sixtieth part of all the money actually placed
on the board. At the present time the bank's winnings (gross) are,
roughly, £1,200,000 per annum.
A large proportion of the gains of the Monte Carlo bank is derived from
small players who enter the rooms with the deliberate intention of
either making a certain sum or losing what they have in their pockets;
these form, as it were, the rank and file of the gambling army which
is constantly being decimated by the Casino, and the almost total
absence of such an element in the room upstairs reduced the play to a
duel between the bank and a number of persons, the majority of whom
were, more or less, capitalists and who, as often as not, went home
immediately after bringing off one big and successful coup.
The gaming-rooms in the Casino at Monte Carlo have often been described
as a hot-bed of vice and debauchery, the tables surrounded by a
seething crowd of excited figures whose countenances betray the intense
emotions which the vitiating effects of play arouse. "Cries of triumph,
imprecations, moans and sobs are heard on every side." In certain
highly coloured accounts, suicide is spoken of as being an ordinary
occurrence, the crowd making way without comment for the passage of the
corpse of some unfortunate gambler who, at the end of his tether, has
blown out his brains.
All this is purely fanciful, and conveys no idea whatever of the real
state of affairs prevailing in the rooms, where calm and good order
invariably reign. There exists, indeed, an almost religious hush in the
halls of this great Temple of Chance. After dinner, and towards the
time of close of play, the scene, it is true, becomes more animated,
but, as a rule, the only sounds heard are those connected with the
games played. What conversation there is is almost exclusively devoted
to short comments on such matters as the lack or abundance of runs on
one particular colour, the persistent recurrence of certain numbers,
the amount of winnings or losings of some well-known player, or the
like; people rarely speak, when at the table, of their own vicissitudes
in the battle with chance.
The real gamblers, that is to say, those to whom speculation is the
very breath of life, speak least of all, their whole mind being
concentrated upon the system or method of staking which it is generally
their practice to adopt. They sit with unmoved faces, which appear
neither elated by victory nor depressed by defeat.
A well-known Monte Carlo type--more abundant perhaps in the past
than to-day--is the _beau joueur_, the man who plays to the gallery
and, let it be added, pays handsomely for his performance. Certain
and inevitable ruin is the fate of these individuals, who sacrifice
themselves to the spirit of vanity. As a rule, the winnings or losings
of such people are a great subject of conversation and discussion
amongst the frequenters of the tables--they are said to have either won
or lost enormous sums--to be at the end of their tether, or to have an
enormous fortune behind them. Their fame, however, is of no enduring
kind, being at best a nine days' wonder. They are soon forgotten, and
their departure, leaving only too often their money in the vaults of
the Casino, and an unpaid bill at their hotel, excites not even passing
comment from the crowd of spectators whose approving gaze and fleeting
admiration has been so dearly bought.
Some old players remain watching the game for a considerable space
of time without risking a stake at all, till the moment arrives when
either superstition or calculation prompts them to take the first steps
in the campaign. Many of these come provided with memorandum books
filled with column after column of figures, records of past runs on
colours, and recurring sequences of numbers carefully inscribed as a
guide to fathoming the capricious movements of fortune.
Others bring queer little mechanical contrivances, which are
manipulated in a manner to show the correspondence between certain
chances; whilst yet another section quite frankly display all sorts of
fetishes, to some of which they attach a quite serious importance. A
piece of the rope which has been used by a hangman is a fetish reputed
to be an almost certain passport to good luck. The experience of the
present writer with a grim relic of this kind did not, however, give
any support to such a belief. As a great favour he was once given a
small hempen souvenir by a friend, and armed with the precious talisman
he betook himself to a trente-et-quarante table, where a good seat
was secured. From the very first, however, it was evident that the
gruesome charm was not exercising its occult influence in a direction
favourable to its new, and perhaps somewhat sceptical, possessor. When
runs were sought for, alternates appeared, and vice versa. _Refaits_
were dealt with unnatural frequency; in fact, disaster followed
disaster in an unbroken sequence, with the result that the little
bit of rope was all that the player had in his pocket as he somewhat
disconsolately strode out of the rooms, rather inclined to wish that
the hempen relic had been utilised for its original purpose around the
neck of its donor.
Gamblers are generally most superstitious folk and swayed by all sorts
of whimsical ideas.
Years ago an old lady used to give the authorities a good deal of
trouble by repeatedly bringing a small portion of ham into the rooms,
and, whilst at play, cutting off slices and eating them. For some
reason or other she had the fixed idea that, in her case, ham-eating
propitiated fortune.
The rules of the Casino naturally forbid any proceeding of such a
kind in the rooms, and whenever the ham was produced the _chef de
partie_ was obliged to point this out. The old lady in question, who
was a well-known character, was, however, very rich, and, being a
constant and high player, any drastic action would naturally have been
disadvantageous to the best interests of the bank. Some compromise was,
therefore, eventually arranged, by which the amount of ham consumed was
so infinitesimal as to pass almost unnoticed by the general public.
Certain players attach considerable importance to the numbers inscribed
upon the check handed to them by the attendants who look after cloaks
and sticks. Now and then, as must of necessity happen in the ordinary
course of events, an individual succeeds in winning a good stake by
backing a number at roulette corresponding with that on his wooden
ticket; more often, however, he fails, and then proceeds to work out
all sorts of combinations of numbers, adding, subtracting and dividing,
as the fancy seizes him.
The number of the sleeping-berth which has carried the visitor from
Paris is also often chosen, as is that of his bedroom in the hotel. The
date of a birthday, the sum total of the numbers on a watch, or of the
figures on a coin, the number of cigarettes left in a case, or of coins
in the pocket, and other similar trifles are all noted with intense
interest by a certain class of player, eager for any clue which they
believe may assist them in their struggle to achieve success.
It used, at one time, to be said at Monte Carlo that the clergyman
of the English Church there never gave out any hymns under number
thirty-six, as he had discovered that some of his congregation had
made a practice of carefully noting down the numbers with a view to
backing them at roulette. Most players, even the least superstitious,
have some special lucky number of their own, which they make a point of
following. Occasionally it turns up two or three times in succession,
which, of course, further confirms them in constantly backing it, and,
more often than not, losing far more than they have won.
The present writer's experiences in this direction have not been of an
encouraging nature.
Some years ago, being on his way to the Principality, he was much
struck by the curiously persistent way in which the number 13
confronted him throughout the journey. His room at Paris was 13; the
number of his sleeping-berth in the train to Monaco was 13; and finally
he was put into room No. 13 at the Hôtel de Paris on the day of his
arrival, the 13th day of the month. All this, to any one with a vestige
of superstition, looked as if 13 was a number well worth backing, and
accordingly the writer hastened to the rooms, eager to see whether
the tip would come off. As a matter of fact the only thing which did
come off was the end of his finger, which in his haste to get to the
Casino he slammed in his bedroom door. After having been attended to
by a surgeon he finally obtained a place at roulette and steadily
backed number 13, which, to his intense disgust, appeared rather less
frequently than the other numbers. The same unsatisfactory state of
affairs prevailed throughout his stay, which on that occasion was a
prolonged and unpleasant one.
The curious influence which the advent of certain persons, or the
occurrence of trivial incidents, appears to exert in matters of luck is
well known to all gamblers. Many of them generally regard a number of
trifles with feelings of considerable apprehension at the gaming-table,
entertaining the most extraordinary likes and dislikes for various
people and things, and cherishing queer fancies at which, in ordinary
life, they would be the first to scoff. All this, of course, is akin to
the superstition of the savage, a queer atavistic reminder of civilised
man's humble descent.
Though the principles of roulette and trente-et-quarante are known to
many, it may not be out of place to give brief descriptions of these
games as played at Monte Carlo.
Before play begins the money is set out at one end of the table. The
gold, after being weighed in scales, is placed in rouleaux, and the
bank notes ranged according to their value. Everything is verified by
an inspector, who taps each row with a rake and signs his name to a
statement on paper.
At trente-et-quarante the minimum stake is a louis, the maximum 12,000
francs (£400), and the capital with which each table begins play £6000.
"Breaking the bank" merely means that the money at a particular table
is exhausted, and that play has to be suspended while more money is
being procured.
Trente-et-quarante is a game of four even chances--_rouge_ and _noir_,
_couleur gagne_ and _couleur perd_. It is played with six packs of
cards, which, having been shuffled, are cut by one of the players.
There is often a good deal of competition for this ceremony, the cut
being by request reserved for some keen player. As a rule, however,
others give way when any one who seems in luck--especially a lady of
attractive appearance--steps forward to cut the cards.
After every one has staked and "_rien ne va plus_" has been called, the
croupier deals the first card face upwards, and continues dealing until
the cards turned up exceed thirty pips in number, when he must announce
the numbers from "trente-et-un" to "quarante." This top line of cards
is black, and when it is less in number than the one which is dealt
beneath black wins.
Another line underneath is then dealt for _rouge_. When the two lines
are equal in the number of pips--say thirty-six each--the dealer
announces an _après_; thirty-one is the _refait_ when all stakes are
_en prison_. When, however, a _refait_ has been dealt, a player may
withdraw half his stake if he chooses, or move his money over from the
red "prison" to the black "prison." In the case of another _refait_,
the money is removed into another space, which is called the second
prison. The odds against a _refait_ turning up are usually reckoned as
63 to 1. The bank is said, however, to expect it twice in three deals,
and there are generally from twenty-nine to thirty-two coups in each
deal. By paying one per cent players may insure their stake. A large
white counter is placed by the croupier on or near the money insured,
which is unaffected by the _refait_. There are high players, however,
who consider it bad policy to insure, and prefer to run the risk of 31
being dealt in both lines.
As a matter of fact, from a mathematical point of view, thirty-one is
the number which the cards are most likely to make, as any one can
easily prove for himself; the combinations formed by the numbers of
the pips on the cards being more adapted to produce thirty-one than
anything else. It is for this reason, no doubt, that the number in
question was chosen for the _refait_, when the game first came into
vogue.
At trente-et-quarante, besides the even chances of _rouge_ and _noir_,
there are also the even chances of _couleur gagne_ and _couleur perd_.
The first card dealt determines _couleur_. If, for instance, it is
red and _rouge_ (the bottom line) wins--_couleur gagne_--the croupier
says, "_rouge gagne et la couleur_"; if it is black and _rouge_
wins--_couleur perd_--the croupier says, "_rouge gagne, couleur perd_."
The prison, of course, applies to _couleur_ just as it does to _rouge_
and _noir_.
At certain stated intervals, in the presence of a _sous-directeur_ or
_chef de partie_, the used packs of cards from trente-et-quarante are
carried to a furnace in sealed sacks and scrupulously burnt.
A good many years ago the backs of the cards used at trente-et-quarante
were plain white; at the present time, however, a slight design, the
pattern of which varies daily, is upon them.
The reason for the change was said to be that the plain backs once
facilitated a fraud, which cost the authorities of the Casino many
thousands of francs. The story is a curious one.
One morning, as trente-et-quarante was pursuing its usual somewhat
monotonous progress, a player with a large pile of money before
him, seated next the croupier dealing, entered into an altercation
with a neighbour about some stake, in the course of which, owing
to violent gesticulations, a whole heap of coins was swept to the
ground. Considerable confusion arose, which naturally necessitated
the interference of the _chef de partie_ (who supervises the game).
The attention of everybody, both officials and players, was drawn to
the spot where the dispute was taking place; the owner of the fallen
treasure loudly declaiming against rough, bullying swindlers being
allowed to enter the rooms at all. However, after much chatter, the
money having been all found, peace was restored and the game proceeded
on its ordinary course.
It was very soon evident that a number of very high players were that
morning seated round the table, for quantities of notes and gold
began to make their appearance. What was more remarkable was that
all the high players seemed to be inspired with the same excellent
idea, for every one of them invariably backed the winning chances. So
extraordinary was their luck that, after the bank had lost a good deal
of money, one of the high officials, who had been watching the game,
announced that for the time being further play would be suspended at
that particular table, as there was reason to believe that the cards
had been tampered with. This naturally provoked a storm of protest, and
in the confusion which ensued, the high players slipped unobtrusively
away, their pockets well stuffed with the money they had extracted from
the bank.
An hour or two later an attempt was made by the authorities to
trace them, but, curiously enough, not one was to be found in the
Principality. They had all crossed the French frontier and had
dispersed in various directions. The cards were afterwards carefully
counted and examined, and a thorough investigation of that morning's
play is said to have proved beyond all doubt that the whole affair had
been a cleverly hatched plot against the bank.
The two men who had quarrelled at the table were professional
swindlers, and had carefully rehearsed the disturbance, in order to
divert attention from the dealer, who remained apparently quite unmoved
whilst the _chef de partie_ and other officials were inquiring into
the dispute. During this time an accomplice on the other side of this
croupier had taken advantage of the general turmoil to slip a portion
of a prepared pack into the man's hand. This was furtively exchanged by
him for a certain number which he was holding ready to deal. Of these
the accomplice relieved him. The high players were all swindlers, well
aware how the cards had been arranged. The croupier, heavily bribed,
was a rare exception, for, as a rule, Monte Carlo croupiers are above
all suspicion. His share in the swindle was detected and he appeared in
the Halls of Chance no more.
As was perfectly obvious, a robbery of this kind was greatly
facilitated by the plain white backs of the cards in daily use. It was
therefore decided that in future every morning a new design should be
produced for the backs of these cards, which, known only to a special
department, would effectually prevent any chance of prepared packets
being interpolated with the packs issued by the authorities.
At roulette as at trente-et-quarante the money is publicly counted out
and verified by an inspector before play begins.
The roulette wheels are balanced in the presence of the public, and one
of the blue-coated _garçons de salle_ goes from table to table with a
spirit-level, which is placed upon the rosewood rim of the cylinder,
a _chef de table_ verifying the accurate adjustment of the wheel by
seeing that the air bubble is exactly in the centre.
The maximum stakes allowed on the different chances at roulette are:--
Francs.
On one number 180
On two numbers (_à cheval_) 360
On three numbers transversal 560
Four numbers (_en carré_) 750
On 0, 1, 2, 3 750
On six numbers transversal 1200
On one dozen 3000
On one column 3000
On all the even chances 6000
[Illustration: PLAN OF ROULETTE TABLE AS USED AT MONTE CARLO
METHODS OF STAKING
1. On one number (3).
2. On two numbers (8 and 9); this is called "à cheval."
3. On three numbers (10, 11, 12); this is called "transversale."
4. On a "carré," or square, of 4 numbers (20, 21, 23, 24).
5. On a transversale of 6 numbers (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30).
6. On an even chance (Black).
7. On two even chances (Black and Pair).
8. On a dozen (1st dozen).
9. On a column (last column).
Maximum stake, 10,000 francs; minimum, 5 francs. Zero sweeps all
stakes except even chances, which go into "prison" till next coup,
when they are either released or taken.]
The amount with which play is begun each day is 80,000 francs, or £3200.
Each roulette table has two boards, on which players may stake, the
roulette wheel (a cylinder let into the table) lying between the two.
The numbers of the roulette are arranged irregularly, though reds and
blacks alternate. Zero, which is not counted as a colour, lies between
32 red and 15 black. There are in all thirty-seven little compartments
which receive the ball--eighteen red, eighteen black, and zero. The
accurate odds, therefore, are 36 to 1 against any particular division;
nevertheless the bank only pays 35 to 1, which causes its profit to
amount to 1 in 37, nearly 2·865 per cent.
The lowest stake allowed at roulette is five francs, the highest 10,000
francs, known as a maximum.
The two sides of the roulette table are duplicates of one another,
each of them being divided something like a chess-board into three
columns of squares, which amount to thirty-six; the numbers advance
arithmetically from right to left, and consequently there are twelve
lines down, so as to complete a rectangle; as 1, therefore, stands at
the head, 4 stands immediately under it, and so on. At the bottom lie
three squares marked 12 p, 12 m, 12 d, that is, first, middle, and last
dozen. Three large spaces on each side of the numbers are for red and
black; even and odd; _manque_ and _passe_, that is, the numbers in the
first and second half respectively from 1 to 18, and from 19 to 36
inclusive. At the top of each board is zero, which sweeps all stakes,
except those on the even chances, into the coffers of the bank.
The stakes having been made a croupier says: "_Le jeu est fait, rien
ne va plus_." The wheel is set in motion. At the same time a croupier
sends the ball flying round the cylinder, the roulette wheel bearing
the numbers being made to revolve in an opposite direction. The ball
eventually falls on to the wheel, and as the latter slackens its
speed, enters a compartment, the number of which is announced thus:
"_Dix-sept, rouge, impair et manque_."
When zero is announced all the money on the table is annexed by the
bank with the exception of that staked upon the even chances red or
black, odd or even, _passe_ or _manque_--the sums on these are moved to
the edge of the board, being _en prison_ till the next coup, when they
are taken or released according to the colour and chance which wins.
The odds laid by the bank work out as follows:--
Stakes placed on any number or on zero are paid at the rate of 35 to
1--a player on the numbers is therefore taking 35 to 1 about a 36 to
1 chance, which must be to his prejudice in the long-run--on any four
numbers 8 to 1, on any six numbers 5 to 1. Red or black, odd or even,
_passe_ (the numbers after 18) or _manque_ (the numbers before 18) are
even-money chances. The dozens and columns are 2 to 1 chances.
Stakes are often placed _à cheval_, that is to say, on two adjoining
numbers, which together are paid at the rate of 17 to 1. The red
numbers and the blacks are unequally divided in the columns. The centre
column contains eight black and only four reds; the first column has
six reds and six blacks; while in the last column there are eight reds
and four blacks.
Professor Karl Pearson, when making an exhaustive study of the laws of
chance, drew up a series of elaborate tables, with the intention of
comparing the results of a number of spins of the roulette wheel with
those produced by drawing numbers from a hat and tossing with coins.