WEST-END GAMING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 59, 11 March 1939, Page 13

WEST-END GAMING

ROULETTE IN FLAT

AN EVENING DRESS RAID

(By Air Mall, from "The Post's" London , Representative

LONDON, February 13. The interruption of a game of roulette by detectives in evening dress was referred to at the Marlborough Street Police Court. Mrs. Frances Bergman 47, owner of a riding.establishment, of Oxford Street, was finedj £60, with £12 costs, on a charge of keeping a gaming-house, and Alfred William Homer, 52, agent, of Queen's Gate, Kensington, was fined £15 for aiding and abetting her. Mr. E. G. B. Taylor, prosecuting, said that Mrs. Bergman occupied a second-floor flat in Oxford Street, for which she paid £6 a week. Detectives who went there at 12.45 a.m. on February 2 found 12 persons playing roulette, with the defendants acting as croupiers. On the table were chips to the value of £97 16s 6d. It appeared that play was for units of 2s 6d or Is. Mrs. Bergman, he added, said that it was a private party and she sent invitations to friends- by telephone. A roulette wheel and a green baize roulette cloth about 10ft long were produced in court. Superintendent Cole said that the windows of the room where roulette was played were heavily screened by curtains. Mrs. Bergman said she took all the profits and provided a free buffet of liquor, coffee, tea, and sandwiches. "Mrs. Bergman," he said, "is well known in West End gaming circles as Mme. Estelle and has been under notice for some time. As the parties are held in different places without previous notice, except to the clients on the day of play, it has given us a great deal of trouble to clear the matter up." He added that Mrs. Bergman was bound over for two years at Westminster in 1936 not to frequent gaming-houses. Homer had been bound over for assisting in the management of a gaming-house. Mr. D. M. Rosenberg, defending, said that Bergman really believed that the matter did not bring her within the law. She had told him she would not do it again. The Magistrate (Mr. E. C. P. Boyd) told her that she was liable to be fined £500 and imprisoned for twelve months.