East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-08-28
GAMBLING AS RISKY FOR THE
HOUSE" As FOR THE VICTIM

The following interesting analysis
of the profession Of gambling and its
percentages and personal equations is
from the New York Post:
Someone has advanced the state
ment that every human being is a
gambler at heart. Yet for man to
go into the business of establishing a
card gambling house under modern
conditions is to attempt one of the
riskiest businesses in the world. Re-
Gently one OF the most noted gaming
house keepers In the country seems
to have suggested a further anomaly
in the situation in his utterance in a
court Of record:
when / conduct a house on 10
per cent basis of profit 1t is only a
matter of time until my steady patron
goes broke.'"
In the face of this statement, how
ever, the innocent layman may be
still further at sea when II is recalled
by old habitues of the gaming table
that nearly every gambling king OF
modern history has finished close to
the poorhouse and the potter's field.
How is 1t possible that |the gambler
with the insidious certain 10 per cent
u -I,n
goes often enough to the green table
almost invariably dies in poverty?
Today 1t is the gambler king who
at least has an ephemeral show to
gain fleetlng richness. But in order
that these riches shall approach riches
as they are measured in other busi-
ness the man who opens the gambling
house must have a fortune for the in
vestment. His outlawed business IT.
self will make 1t certain that he pays
the maximum rental or the highest
price for the property which he
chooses for occupancy. To sustain
wealthy patron who not only has
money to lose. but who has a certain
influence which may tend toward i'm
munity for keeper and player alike.
The establishment" will need to have
the best cuisine and the best cellars,
with palatial furnishings and n retinue
of servants in full keeping And
somewhere money win be necessary
in binding officials TO the existence
of an institution which is visible to
the merest tyro in passing along the
street.
a constitution of iron. the absence
of a nervous system, the discrimina-
tion of a King Solomon and the tact
of diplomat are requisites for the
successful gambler king. Considering
the qualification of the man for such
a place and the final ending of the
gambler kings career. 1t might be a
sociological study worth while to de-
termine where, on more worthy
bent, such capacities in man might
land him.
In real life, however, 1t must be ad-
mitted that the gambler king is look
ed upon in exaggerated light. AL
most without exception the big gam
Ter is posing always. Conventionality
has demanded it Of him. But far
more than this, in order to command
the following which he desires. he
must have certain social side which
he may bring out on dress parade. To
the layman the gambler is the dark,
sinister figure pictured in melodrama.
He bears the same relation to gam
bling that Simon Legree pears in the
institution of slavery of SO years ago.
In the conduct of a gambling house
OF the first-class. writes John Codgan.
n western authority, the gambler king
needs for himself and for his patrons
the assurance of uninterrupted play.
Men of money and position will not go
to a house where there is menace OF
police raid. The small gambler may
subsidize the policeman OF the beat