Today it is the gambler king who at least has an ephemeral show to
gain fleeting riches. But in order that these riches shall approach
riches as they are measured in other businesses, the man who opens the
gambling house must have a fortune for the investment. His outlawed
business itself will make it certain that he pays the maximum rental
or the highest price for the property which he chooses for occupancy.
To sustain this he will need to seek out the wealthy patron who not
only has money to lose, but who may have a certain influence which may
tend toward immunity for keeper and player alike. The "establishment"
will need to have the best cuisine and the best cellars, with palatial
furnishings and a retinue of servants in full keeping.
And somewhere money will be necessary in blinding officials to the
existence of an institution which is visible to the merest tyro in
passing along the street.
A constitution of iron, the absence of a nervous system, the
discrimination of a King Solomon and the tact of a diplomat are
requisites for the successful gambling king. Considering the
qualification of the man for such a place and the final ending of the
gambling king's career, it might be a sociological study worth while
to determine where, on a more worthy bent, such capacities in a man
might land him.
In real life, however, it must be admitted that the gambler king is
looked upon in exaggerated light. Almost without exception the big
gambler is posing always. Conventionality has demanded it of him.
But for more than this, in order to command the following which
he desires, he must have a certain social side which is not too
prominent, but which with tact and judgment he may bring out on
dress parade. To the layman the gambler is the dark, sinister figure
pictured in melodrama. He bears the same relation to gambling that
Simon Legree bore to the institution of slavery of fifty years ago.