A GAMBLING TRUST.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8764, 15 March 1907, Page 1

A GAMBLING TRUST.

Pakis, January 16. , Sensational reverations have been maie concerning tho operations of the great Gambling Club Trust, the 42 members of which (including their chief, M: Marquet, have just been expelled from this country.) The trust ran a number of gambling houses under the guise of clubs, and its profits from each house amounted to £144,000 per annum. It is estimated that during the past '• year its net gains have considerably • exceeded £1,000,000. News of the great extension of gambling which has recently taken place reached the Home Office from the dressmaking establishments, where numbers of bills remained unpaid by well-known society women and actresses owing to their heavy , losses at the trust clubs. It came to the knowledge of the authorities that many women had ' been in the habit of attending these ! gaming houses, where some of them had lost £3OOO to £4OOO at a sitting. A celebrated actress lost £3200 in one evening. Some of the women, after losing all their money, ware seen to take off all their jewellery and dispose of it at absurd prices to shady brokers who haunted the places for the purpose of picking up such bargains. With the proceeds the unhappy' women would try their luck once more—in the great majority of cases only to lose all. These revelations caused the Government to make inquiries, and it, was discovered that M. Marquet's great extension of gaminghouses had by a curious circumstance been rendered possible by the Associations Law of 1901, which was passed to put an end to the religious associations. Under this measure he found that he could open so-called clubs without having to get police permission. All he had to do was to make a declaration of an association, give it a high- i sounding title, take a house, and start gambling. One of his clubs, called the Club ] de France, in the Avenue MacMahon, ' had an immense membership of men and women, the subscription . being quite a nominal amount, and ■ it was here that most of the heavy losses by women occurred, « M. Marquet, who runs gambling , rooms in Ostend, Namur, Dinan, Spa, and Corfu, has had an extraordinary career. He was a waiter in an Ostend cafe, and in 1899 he married the owner's widow. "With her money he started roulette at • Osfceud and Spa, and by suppressing the zero for a few hours each day he made his tables so popular that in a very short time he made an immense fortune. He organised his men in a wonderfully clever way, teaching ] them in a school for croupiers which he ran, and paying them so highly that they weie all devoted to him. I In his Paris houses he introduced •* a new form of baccarat, which proved exceedingly popular, but very costly to his clients.

He recently offered a prize of £BOOO for the owner of the first aeroplane which should fly from Paris to Oatend.