FAILURE AT BACCARAT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2143, 28 December 1920, Page 8

FAILURE AT BACCARAT.

£72,000 IN 3| HOURS' PLAY. POCKETS STUFFED WITH NOTES. I have just learned the stoTy of the winning of £72,000 at baccarat at the casino at Deauville in a 3*-hours' sitting, writes the Paris correspondent of the "Daily Mail." A Greek shipowner who has been staying at Deauville, Tu". Valiano, has been in the habit of spending the afternoon in the men's baccarat room at the casino. There are 40 baccarat tables, but in the men's room, from which women are excluded, there are only two, and it is there that really high play takes place. The lowest stake is a £4O note, and most people play with bundles of 10 banknotes of this "value tied up together. One afternoon, about. 10 days ago, M. Valiano, who is 50, and has lived in France a long while, made up his mind not to go to the casiflo. He started for a walk, but finding time hang rather heavily; he went into the men'* baccarat room about 5 o'clock and began to play. . From the first he had fantastic luck. Whether he held the bank or was '' punting V nothing could go wrong. He won continually. The bundles of £4OO were pushed towards him with almost mechanical regularity, and he stuffed bundles of £4OO into his pockets till, in the words of an Englishman present, '' he looked like a balloon. •? About 8.30 the game broke up, and M. Valiano came out.of the casino to go back to his hotel to dress for dinner. '' Had a good sitting?'' asked a friend,, in the presence of my informant. "Come and Help Count." "I have not the slightest idea how much X, have won," M. Valiano replied. "It must be a great deal. Will you come and help me count it?" The two friends went to the Normandy Hotel and called the assistant cashier to their help. They went up to M. Valiano's room and locked the oook Then he began to unload his winnings on the table. From every pocket came the tightly-packed bundles of crisp banknotes—from side-pockets, hippockets, breast-pockets, waistcoatpockets. They made a mound on the polished table. The three men exchanged a glance of amazement, and then counted steadily for half an hour. The rustle of £4O notes was uninterrupted.

When the last bundle -was counted the cashier read out the total in a voice that was hushed with a certain reverence. "Fcs.1,800,000," he said. At normal rates of exchange that would mean £72,000 in English money; even now it represents £38,000, and all won between 5 and 8.30 p.m.

M. Albert Nahmias, from Salonica, is said to have won £60,000 at Deanville in a fortnight. He has given £BOOO to each of his three children. The Contrast.

In contrast with these favourites of fortune, there have been, of course, many cases of players almost ruined at Deauville this season. Though no details are allowed to transpire, suicides have been reported several times.

" It is not the idle rich who have been responsible for all these heavy stakes," I was told to-day by a British visitor, who has years of experience of Deauville, Monte Carlo, and other gambling resorts. '' The big players were all captains of industry. Few Englishmen stake heavy sums, and the game played was invariably baccarat. "This admits of larger gains and losses, for at baccarat you play against the banker, while at roulette you play against the casino. At Monte Carlo, for instance, the casino has a limit, so that to break the bank at Monte Carlo is an insignificant performance beside the winnings of the Deauville players."