Within a few years New York has given to the world some of the inside working of the gambling business. When Jerome raided the place of places which had been considered immune, the proprietor of the house was considered worth a million dollars. Before the litigation was done and the fine paid the gambler king was out $600,000, his "club-houses" were closed, and he had been branded officially as a common gambler, pursued in the courts for payment of lawyers' fees, which he designated as outrageous and a "shrieking scandal." Yet this man was of the type whose word had been declared as good as his bond.
Dice, Faro and Roulette.
Dice, faro and roulette are the principal games of the gambling house and, considering these, the experienced player will tell you that he is suspicious of a "petey" in the dice box, a "high layout" in faro, and a "squeezed wheel" in roulette, in just the proportion that the gambling house keeper has not recognized that he cannot indulge them because of the fear of detection. The gambler holds to the gambler's view of the gambler—and it is not complimentary to the profession.
That the gentleman gambler is justified in his attitude toward the gentleman player, too, has been shown in the New York revelations. There one gentleman player, loser to the extent of $300,000. compromised with the "bank" for 130 bills of $1,000 denomination. There a gentleman player who had lost $69,000 to the bank tried to compromise on $20,000, but was in a position where the bank could hold him. How much the gambler king may loan and lose in the course of a year scarcely can be approximated. The gambling debt is "a debt of honor," and even in business not all such debts are paid. Whether a borrowed debt or a debt of loss to the bank, this honor is the security, unless in emergency the gambler king discovers that he can blackmail with safety to his interests as a whole.
In general, the gambler who is "on the square" operates on a 10 per cent basis for his bank. In addition there is the "unknown per cent" which is his at the end of the year. The roulette wheel, for example, presents to the player just one chance in thirty-seven of winning on a single play, while the winning on that play is paid in the proportion of only 34 to 1.
More Nerve to Win Than Lose.
The one great characteristic in human nature on which the gambler counts is the fact that it requires more nerve in a man to win than is required of him to lose! It is startling for the layman to be told that $5,000 in a night is a big winning for a player, while $5,000 is only an ordinary loss in a big establishment.
This fact is based on subtle psychology. There are two types of players, one of which gambles when it is in a state of elation and the other when in a state of depression. With either of these types winning, it is a gambler's observation that the man who will play until he has lost $25,000 when luck hopelessly is against him cannot hold himself to the chair after he is $5,000 winner.