Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-12
The GAMBLING IN PORTO RICO
Favorite Games in the Clubs and
With the Poor in the Streets.
UNCLE SANS BOYS LEARNING
Copyright, 1890, by Frank G. Carpenterl

ietteT ABOUT SamDilnR. we nave annexed
a large sporting population. The Porto
Rieans surpass the brokers of Wall street
as betters. Every city and every village
has Its games of chance, and the children
begin gambling as soon as they are old
enough to talk. The little ones pitch cop
pers. see them playing marbles in the
street. but never without putting up q
centavo on every shot. The child who has
not his centavo to risk is out of the game.
Men working on the road to be seen
playing marbles for pennies during the
noon rest.
It is the same with kites. 1 was sur
prised when 1 first came here to see that
both men and boys were flying kites. They
were gathered together on the hills about
the cities, especially San Juan, each hold
ing large kite, or the string attached to
one. The different owners holding the
strings of the flying kites tried to make
them move toward one another. The
strings near the kites had been soaked
with glue and into this powdered glass had
been busted. Each man tried to cut the
string of his neighbours kite by rubbing his
kite string against it, and when one of the
glass busted strings touched an ordinary
cord it sawed through it like a knife, and
the kite thus loOSened sailed away or
dropped to the ground 1t seemed odd that
the people We're excited by these kite
nights, until L learned that every man and
every boy had bet on his kite and that
all sorts of sums from pennies to dollars
were resting on the strength or sharpness
of string.
Porto RicO's Monte Carlo.
I visited the old Monte Carlo of Porto
Rico on my trip across the island on the
military road. This al Coamo Hot
Springs, among the mountains a few miles
back from the coast. Here there is a
large rambling hotel and many cottages,
q of ba of he
iards We're filed with health seekers and
gamblers, especially gamblers. Porto Ric-
ans from every part of the island and the
Weather people of the neighboring West
Indies spent their vacations at Coamo for
the games and the bath The hotel had
many roulette and monte tables, and gam
blng went on as regularly as at Monte
Carlo the Mediterranean. Since the
advent of the Americans the sporting fea-
ture of Coamo has been taken away. The
hotel has been sold to a New England
party, and the springs will probably be
the Saratoga Springs of Porto Rico. They
of great volume. The water steams
as it rushes forth, and there is so much
of it that it gives the great bath houses
q continuous flow. 1t is just pleasantly
warm, and it has such medicinal prop
critics that it is claimed 1t will soak
all disease out of the system. The sur
rnundings of COamo are exceedingly beau
tifuL Mountains covered with semf-trop-
zeal vegetation rise up around it. and the
breeZeS from the sea keep the leaves of
the banana and the palm in constant mo-
ton.
Monte and Roulette.
Two of the favorite games of Porto Rico
are monte and roulette Monte is much
like our faro. Bets are made upon turning
of a card. Roulette is played with table.
in whose center is horizontal revolving
wheel, which slopes toward the rim. About
the outside of the rim are numbered holes,
corresponding to figures on the table. The
croupierso or manager of the game gives the
wheel a whirl and then drops a marble
upon ii. In the meantime each of the bet
tiers has placed his money upon certain of
the figures. If the marble, when the wheel
stops, drops into the hole having the same
figures as he has chosen, the winner re-
ceives from the croupier thirty-five times
the amount of money he has ventured: if
not it goes to the bank. There a num-
Der of combinations in the game upon
which bets can be made, but in each of
them as in this. the percentage is largely
in favor of the table.
These games are always played on feast
days and at all places where large numbers
of the people come together. At Mayaguez
there is one feast during the winter, which
lasts for more than a week. The poor peo-
pie of the country save their money for it,
and a day SO before it begins the town
is filled with professional gamblers, who
side the city
There are now about 10000 men at work
upon the roads. On pay days the gamblers
gather about the gangs and tempt them to
play away their wages as soon as they are
paid.
The poor are to be seen gambling in
almost every saloon. and there are gam
bling houses, under the names of clubs in
the larger cities, such as Ponce. San Juan
and MayagueZ, which patronized by the
rich Our soldiers have initiated the mem
bers of these clubs into the American game
of poker and that to their sorrow: for the
Porto Ricans so far have won rather than
lost. They are bold gamblers, and it is by
no means safe to tempt them with a bluff
Gambling Among Our Soldiers.
Speaking of the soldiers, many of those
who have come to Porto Rico are inveter-
ate card players. On the transport which
brought me to San Juan there was game
or so always going on upon deck, and l
find that there is considerable gambling
among the troops here At Ponce the SOL
diers have a little poker den in the rear of
an American bakery, where they while
away the weary hours at roulette, faro and
poker. Other such games are largely pat
ronized by the soldiers in one of the sa-
looms at San Juan, and there is not much
difficulty in finding chances to lose your
money at MayagueZ.
Porto Rico's Favorite Betting Game,
The most of the money won and lost by
the Porto Ricans themselves is on cock
fighting. Almost every man and boy on the
island bets more or less on such contests
Every city ard every village has it's cock
pit. and thousands of cock fights go on
every week outside the public pit
The people rothing brutal in it. They
grow very angry if you accuse them of bull
fighting. A young LADY met in Ponce was
indignant because I had among my curios
a FAM on one side of which was the picture
of bull fight and on the other the words,
Souvenir de Porto Rico" She said and
that truly, that the Porto Ricans do not
fight bulls, and she told me that 1 was mis-
representing the people when l carried back
such fan as that to my home in another
part of the United States.
As to cock fighting however nothing evil
is thought OF it. Il is SO common that all
idea of its being wrong or brutal has long