Birmingham age-herald., 1894-07-20
MONTE CARLO TRICKS
THEY REDUCE THE SHOW FOR THE PLAYER TO NEARLY NOTHING.


 Leaves Little to Chance and BaIks Too
 Much Good Luck.
 The police of Monte Carlo arc so admira- ply organized that few hours after any body's arrival the name of the visitor is already reported to the administration of the cercle, with of course the address and various details, such as the amount of lug gage, the appearance, the price of the room or pension taken, etc. These details are all important to the inspocteur du vatique "a venerable looking old scoundrel whose duty it is to repatriate broken down gam blers- Anybody who has lost every penny he brought with him can on application either recover 10 per cent of his losses or, if the sum is small, his railway fare to the extent of from e4 to e6 is paid. This last is called the viatique and is given against q regular U, which has to be refundep before the recipient can be admitted again to the gambling house. Wemay mention, en passant, that no less than e40, 900 is distrihuted in this guise every year and that no less than e30, 900 is actually paid back.
 The information of the police in and out side the building is so precise that it is no use for anybody to pretend to have lost 91 900 if he has lost only 950. The state ment is accepted with great politeness, only one is asked to walk along the rooms with an inspector and then to wait awhile. Ere long the inspector will return and tell you not only how much, more or less, you have lost but he will tell you what your game was-single or multiple chances, Q mar tingale" or at random-and if you protest he will add yet some more information, 14ox- q ltr1n at cheap places, or You live at a cheap pension" etc, The above only goes to prove how carefully everything and every body is watched-the walters, the hotel proprietors, tho railway officials and the croupiers living at boarding houses all send in tho results of their observations every day.
 Now, as to the precautions against ob- stinate good luck for punters. The first is in the fact that tho gambling house is q cercle,. club, to which admittance is gained on presenting card issued by the administration for one day only. This card has to be personally renewed every , day, and nothing is easier than to refuse r this to too persistent winner No reason is vouchsafed for the refusal, and the staff of "chuckers out' within easy reach looks too convincing to attempt intrusion or ar guments. Should the objectionable punter be too big game for such a summary pro ceeding there Is quito an army of agents provocateurs, both men and women, around each table, and they, according to instructions, pick up q quarrel with the lucky player-generally over stake-a row ensues, both parties arc chucked out, and then the inspector explains that the rule of the cercle is not to admit again those who make disturbance and spoil the partie. Rccriminations are useless, and as whatever law or justice there is at Monte Carlo is in the hands of the So cete des Bains de Mer'' just as is the police, thero is neither protection nor ap- peal.
 It must, however be explained here that these extreme measures apply only to sue cessful 'martingalistes '--system players or to Lightning" punters-gamblers who come every day for few minutes, stake three times some maximums, win by some remarkable fluke and go away. These are the most hated, if only because of the superstition as to playing sur la tetc du ponte-that is, following en nlasse the stakes of lucky player There have been cases where successive banks have been broken thus. A roulette bank starts gen erally with from G2, 900 to G3, GOO, accord ing to season, and the bank is considered broken when this sum is lost Very often when the bank has been broken twice in succession the play is stopped at this par ticular table and the roulette taken away another proof of the precautions re- ferred to-and as a patent instance that the administration does not believe in the pos sibility of pure chance. It is either the roulette or the croupier that must be out of gear
 As matter of fact, a croupier does get out of gear because after certain time, 15 to 80 minutes, he sets the disk moving and the ball rolling with the same swing, so to say, and the result is that the ball will fall time after time into the samo section of the disk. The consequences of this phe- nomcnon have been more than once dsas- trous on the bank in years past; hence croupiers are changed every half hour, or each 30 coups arc made by fresh hand. Some 800 coups are played daily at each table. As a further proof that the hand can acquire certain dynamic monotony, if one may uso the expression, and high evenness of impulse may be cited the fact that at the croupiers school at the Con- damnine there is a daily practice of aim ing at zero." It is well known that zero is tho banks chance of winning all other stakes except, of course its own, and the single ones which are put ''on prison, tied : over until the next coup. Wiser au zero is g the croupier's constant preoccupation, and VIC find in this practice another in stance of what was said in the beginning about the chances of the punter,
 Rows happen mostly in the summer season, when small players and system players swarm around the tables. This is nlso the busy time for those appointed to , watch over the various martingalistes, " 5 for, although tho founder of tho house. old 2 Blanc used to say that hc would give a :. million to anybody who could prove that it is possible to win 5 francs at roulette f with absolute certainty, still the present administration will not even leave this