CASINO GAMBLERS

Evening Star, Issue 22106, 13 August 1935, Page 12

CASINO GAMBLERS

PLAY FOR HIGH STAKES CROUPIER TELLS HIS STORY I earn my livelihood by giving fortunes to some people and taking tortunes away from others, writesPiene Marshal, in the ‘Sunday Chronicle, London. He is a casino croupier at Monte Carlo. , After a night’s play at the baccarat tables I have often handed over a cool £50,000 to a lucky gambler and taken away as much from another player, who may go out from the casino ruined and forced to beg a penny for a crust own experience—and I have been a croupier since I left the army convinces me that only- those people who have “ gambler’s blood lose their money to the last penny. There are plenty of them. , ~ • One night a young and good-looking Englishman came into the casino at Juan-les-Pins. I judged this young Englishman to be not desperate, but fairiy hardbitten. He changed 200 francs into 20-franc chips, but he could not begin playing at once, _ as every place at the table was occupied. LUCK THAT TURNED. He fidgeted about for a time watching the run of luck with feverish eyes. Then a young Viennese stage star who had been gambling heavily all night lett the tables, and the Englishman slipped into the vacant scat. His first attempt was disastrous. It happened to be the big table at which the highest stakes are played, and' the minimum bid is 100 francs. He played his five 20-frano chips on No. 2 and lost, and then repeated his bid a few minutes later. I presumed he was broke, but he searched in his pockets and brought out another hundred francs and changed the note into chips. He won. He went on playing and continued to win. Before the dawn came be had raked in more than £I,OOO. When play ended for the night we went out together for a drink. He talked. He had no longer that hardbitten look. His face was alight with joy. “ This means I can begin again,” he said. ‘‘l’m going back to England tonight instead of crossing over to Morocco.” From what ho told me I gathered he had got into some kind of financial trouble at home, and had run away with the intention of enlisting in the French Foreign Legion. At Marseilles be found he had still a few pounds left, so he thought he might have one last (ling with fortune by staking the rest of his money on the gaming tables. So ho came along to Juan-les-Pins. And chance was in his favour. IMMENSELY RICH. One of the persons whom I first met at Le Touquet is an Englishwoman whom we refer to, among ourselves, as ” Her Highness,” because of her stately bearing. She Is immensely rich, and spends most of her life in the casinos. To look at her with all her money one might easily imagine her to be the happiest woman in the world, but she is probably' the most miserable. I will tell you why. A number of years ago she went with a young woman friend to a fortuneteller. The fortUne-teller_ looked into the crystal and told the friend that'she would die within a year. Our stately friend, declared the seer, would live longer, but have a worse fate. She would die by the hand of an assassin »n her apartment at night. Within a year the friend was dead, and now Her Highness,” dreading to remain in her flat at night, passes the. hours of darkness amid the glitter and tinsel of the halls of chance. She leaves her apartment at the cocktail hour, goes into one of the beach cafes to take an aperitif, dines in one of the luxury restaurants in the town, then goes along to the baccarat rooms. She plays continuously, sometimes winning, sometimes losing.. It does not seem to make any difference to her how the' pendulum swings. She is haunted by fear, and she will pay any price to banish from her thoughts the terrible shadow of death by violence which for ever hangs over her head, I have found myself many a morning at 9 o’clock still playing the part of croupier at the casino with only one gambler, this elderly Englishwoman.

WINNER OB’ £05,000. I have often been asked about systems, whether they ever prove profitable. In my own experience 1 have

found only one person who really made big money from a system. He was a Spaniard, who many years ago lost his money in gambling and then emigrated to Australia. His ambition was to make enough money to return to the Riviera to try out what ho declared was an infallible system. He contended that it had failed him in the beginning because he had not had enough capital to carry out the system right through to its conclusion. He came over the seas again, a real “ digger ” with a strong Australian accent. He had quite a tidy sum with him ; and he settled down to gamble against the bank. Always playing his system, he staked larger and still larger sums. Sometimes he lost, sometimes he won, but after three weeks the tide turned and he broke the bank. That night brought the highest play I have known in my own career as a croupier, because he eventually carried off more than £65,000.

The record sum won by a Rambler at a casino in France is £BO,OOO, which was gained by a well-known and wealthy actress after 12 hours’ continuous play.