GAMBLING TABLES OF MONACO.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3129, 8 July 1881, Page 4

GAMBLING TABLES OF MONACO.

It is quite possible to have a sti'oke of luck, but even tho fortunate winner is certain to lose if lie his tempted to continue tho hazard. The great majority of players lose heavily ; in a single clay's play some gain and others neither lose nor win. But the bank is bound by necessity to win, whatever may bo the vicissitudes of individual gamblers. The compartments of the roulette tables, into -which the pea may leap after being spun, are thirty-seven, one being zero,_ or blank, the others numbered up to thirty-six. The chances may be equal for the marked places against the bank, but when znro turns up all the money from every compartment is hauled in by tho croupiers. Every thirty-seventh stake falls to the bank, making a large revenue, f:\_a tHvast sums of money on the tables before every turn of the wheel. At roulette the smallest sum allowed to be staked ia five francs, the largest being 6,000 francs. At Trente-et-quaranto a napoleon, or twenty francs, is tho minimum stake. There are about a dozen roulette tables. To many who have not been to Monte Carlo, or seen the tobies at Komburg or Baden-Baden formerly ir Paris in older times, the famous picture in the Dore Gallery may have given a life-like picture of a gambling hell. All looks calm and orderly, the emotions of the most excited players being usually restrained in public. But under the surface are hidden tumultuous feelings and passions, by which reason is too often overthrown. The number of actual suicides is declared by the prudent local press to be exaggerated, and the authorities take good care that the victims are quickly and quietly put under ground. But who can enumerate the broken constitutions, the blighted prospects, the ruined homes, or describe the vile pandemonium of dishonesty, covetousness, falsehood intrigue, lust, and every form of baseness and crime, that make up the true chronicles of Monte Carlo ?—leisure Won v.