HUGE GAMING BILL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20354, 10 March 1928, Page 12

HUGE GAMING BILL.

FRENCH CASINO’S PROFITS. ESTIMATE OF £3,233,0C0. MORE RESORTS TO BE BUILT. Latest French tax resanis show that evcrv year the. Goddess oi Chance is being worshipped there more and more. The 160 casinos of Trance made a gross profit for the 1926-1927 wuhcrseasonand the 1927 summer season of £5,235,UUU as compared with £2.000,000 in 1925 and £3,166,000 in 1926. The year 1926, however, was very exceptional on account ot the fall of the franc. , New casinos are springing up Use mushrooms. At Nice, where there are already six casinos, a syndicate, headed bv Frank Jay Gould and Joseph Aletti, is spending £600,000 on a magnificent new casino called the Venetian Palace, iwo others are under construction. This, however, does not mean that Frenchmen are gambling more extensively than before, but simply that more dollars mid pounds sterling are being speculated on the tables. If one includes Monte Carlo, which really belongs to the French gambling map,' the total gross gambling profits for the year amount to about £5,300,000. The great increase ever 1925, the last normal vear, is all the more remarkable, as there were fewer tourists owing to the bad weather. These profits, to which English and American visitors chiefly contributed, give an idea of the stupendous sums which are wagered annually in France and Monaco, which is n kind of French protectorate. ■ The Monte Carlo casino made £1,250,000 of its ,£1,300,000 profits on gambling, and chieflv on roulette and trente ct nuarantc. These two games theoretically pay the “ house ’’ an average of 2 per cent, on every spin of the wheel, or turn of the cards, hut the mistakes made bv players bring the profits up to about S'per cent. It is generally agreed that most of the mon'ey taken to Monte Carlo is lost in the gambling rooms. How can any one consistently beat a machine which is made to give the house an advantage of at least 2 per cent., and runs over 5 per cent, for unskilful players? There have only been three or four large winners in 60 years, and all of them except one—Darnaborough, an American—lost their winnings there.