Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 168, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1914 — PLAY FOR HIGH STAKES [ARTICLE]

PLAY FOR HIGH STAKES

GAMBLERS’ PARADISE. Reckless Spendthrifts Win Occasionatly, Though Money is Almost Invari- ” ably Left in the Wide Open - Coffers of the Bank. The play at the Beach club is worth gaming. It is a sure thing for the house, yet the most dangerous kind, -the kind where the winnings of ..a, month may be swept In an hour; The recklessness of these Spendthrifts who know nothing of money values makes them dangerous to the house. They do not play skilfully, place their bets regardless of accepted rules, and destroy all the laws of averages. I have seen a few play, or attempt to play, abortive “systems,” and one or two try systems learned from a book; hut the majority Ignore entirely the laws of mathematical progression upon which “systems” are founded. The nominal limit at the club is SI,OOO on. a. color, although this limit may bd raised indefinitely by a simple request, and it is not recorded that the proprietors- ever refused to permit-a plunger to dive as high as he pleased—provided he could afford It. The player will stumbl? upon a run of luck, or drop a disproportionate bet upon a single winning number. “Many of them play the long shots steadily and, of course, occasionally some one wins a large amount in a hurry. I once saw a young fellow put $lO in checks on number 5, get $350 for it, iput $250 of «that on the odd, $25 on each of, the corners round the five, and $lO on the 5 which repeated. - Hs placed a pile of checks on each num* ber in the first 12 except the 5, played the first 12 to win and stacked a huge bunch on the red. In three rolls of the wheel he had won nearly six thousand dollars. An hour later he quit about five hundred dollars winner. These winnings are not regretted much by such clubs. I saw one case of how such “killings” affect the Beach club. A young Falls River fellow had been playing regularly each evening and losing almost as regularly—how much I do not know, but it ran into thousands. One evening he had just such a run of luck as I have described, and, as nearly as I could tell, he took about six thousand dollars out of the club—possibly more, but not much. Before he reached the Breakers, where he was stopping, the sum of his winnings, according to corridor gossip, was trebled. In the grill, where he was buying wine an hour later, the statement was made he had won $35,000. By midnight it was reported as authoritative that he had won nearly one hundred thousand dollars and that the Beach club was hit hard. The next afternoon and evening play at the c|ub was much heavier, and applications of membership were in such demand that I was offered $25 for the use of membership card for the afternoon by a young man who had neither the wealth nor the influence to get in.—American Magazine.