Monte Carlo Memories

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18581, 15 December 1934, Page 9

Monte Carlo Memories

|\/fR. Pq,ul do Ketchiva in “The Devil’s Playground,” gives his reminiscences of 20 years as a casino croupier. There is one good story about the ex-Ivaiser, who learned on a visit to tho Riviera before lhe war that a certain Professor Schott, of Heidelberg, had devised a new and perfect gambling system. After discussing it with the inventor, he offered to pur chase it for a lump sum. “The Professor, doubtless deciding that cash in hand was worth nil in the Casino bank, agreed and sold his secret to the German Emperor, who several days later paid an incognito visit to the Casino and tried it. To the intense chagrin ami annoyance ot the All Highest, tho system lost him 5000 louis to the bank! ” The only person who has over really defeated the bank at Monte Carlo, the reader is told, was an engineer from the North of England named .Taggers. The roulette wheels, he argued, could not be so perfectly balanced as not to bias in the direction of certain numbers. So with a few thousand pounds capital he embarked in his scheme, “Taking into his employ several clerks, ho set them to watch all the roulette wheels in the Casino and make lists of the winning numbers. Each night lie went carefully over those and was able to detect that certain numbers came up more than others at each table. A faking a chart of those numbers he went to the Casino and, fortified by tho peculiarities of each wheel, he began to play. In a few days he had relieved the bank of £120,000.” One is told that Ludcndorff _ once broke the bank and won .150,000 francs; that Sarah Bernhardt lost ] 000,000 francs and tried to commit suicide; that Andre Citroen, “the Henry Ford of France,” has broken the bank three times in one evening.

He: I’ll be utterly wretched when you go away. She: Oh, darling, if I felt, quite sure of that I’d be terribly happy.

Hint to wives: Don’t correct him if he sits with his feet on the table. It encourages pocket change to slide behind the chair cushions.—Los Angelos Times.