The impression obtained from the saloons by a new comer is, that all the habitués are amiable, insouciant, comfortable, and prosperous. He would never suspect that, behind all this fair comedy, lurks the sombre spirit of tragedy; that the serenest faces mask an aching mind, and that the softest smiles hide, but do not help, a breaking heart. Nowhere under the sun is social masquerading more skilful and complete than in the German temples of chance. Everything is so smooth, so decorous, so delicate, so nicely adjusted, that one who seeks for inner contrasts must seem like a cynic and an iconoclast. To him who can believe in appearances, Wiesbaden and Ems are the most satisfactory places of sojourn. They express the essence of formal conventionality, and the rounded relation between unexceptionable raiment and unexceptionable manners. They point to the promised land of adaptation, and predict the millennium of mode.
There have ever been, and there ever will be, any number of persons foolish enough to think they can break the bank, if they will only watch the game closely, and profit by the favor of fortune. It is this delusion which sends, year after year, so many victims to the Conversationshaus and Cursaal, and keeps up the faith of the victims, even after they have been ruined again and again.
THE DIRECTION.
The gaming saloons are governed and regulated by a stock company, under the name of the Direction, which is the closest of close corporations. It is eminently impersonal too, nobody knowing the names of, or, indeed anything about, its members. Of course, its stock, like that of some of our gas companies and banks in New York, is not to be had, and is never quoted. The directors pay a license to the petty governments under which the tables are kept, and which are largely sustained thereby. The license varies materially. At Baden it is about seventy-five thousand dollars a year, and the Direction, in addition thereto, pays all the expenses of the Conversationshaus, whatever is required for the preservation and improvement of the adjoining grounds and gardens, and makes many other outlays, which must increase the total sum to fully one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. At Homburg the license is some fifty thousand dollars, and, moreover, the Direction of the Cursaal lights the little town, keeps it in good condition, supports its hospital and other charitable institutions. At Ems and Wiesbaden, the government tax—for that is what the license really is—is about sixty thousand dollars for the former, and forty thousand dollars for the latter place.
CAPITAL OF THE BANKS.
The capital of the Direction is set down at from two million to one million five hundred thousand dollars, though I seriously question if much more than one tenth of the sum has ever been paid in. The tables usually clear from two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand dollars annually; the profits being larger, of course, at Baden than at Ems, and varying with the season, and the luck of the bank. Not long ago, the Homburg bank was broken five times during the year, and yet the Direction, even then, declared a dividend, it is said, of nearly twenty-five per cent. on their capital. The income from the stocks of the German gambling companies is reputed to be enormous, and I have met men in many foreign countries who were credited by rumor with owning such shares. They had no visible means of support, and still they lived luxuriously, even prodigally, merely because they had had the good fortune to secure a small amount of stock in the Cursaal or Curhaus.
The limitations and the percentage at roulette and rouge-et-noir are seldom taken sufficiently into account by the galerie, as the bettors are named. Those, in the long run, will beat anybody and everybody, whatever run of luck they may have now and then. The games are based on an ultimate certainty, almost mathematical, in favor of the bank, and the prevalent notion that the players can have any permanent advantage is simply absurd. The chances on the side of the bank are so many, that, in a given time, it must inevitably win, and win largely. All the systems by which the galerie expect to triumph are utterly false and deceptious. They have done more, by a certain speciousness, to lead men to their ruin, than anything connected with the passion for hazard. They invariably fail, because of the limitations in bets, and the percentage in favor of the tables; but the advocate of the system very seldom reckons upon these great drawbacks. This class of men believe that will happen which they wish to have happen, and are therefore incapable of clear perception of anything opposed to their theories and desires.
THE ODDS AGAINST BETTORS.
The one adverse fact, above any other, to bettors generally is, that they very seldom, if ever, play as recklessly when they are winning as when they are losing. The reason is that, in the latter circumstances, they are endeavoring to win back their stakes, and are consequently in more or less desperate mood; while in the former case they are satisfied with what comes to them, and not tempted constantly to augment their bets for the sake of getting even. Irrational and ridiculous as it appears, there certainly seems to be such a thing as a run of luck, good or ill. We have all experienced this many times, albeit we may express the phrase in other words. On certain days things go wrong with us, and on certain other days they flow smoothly and prosperously, though we are wholly unconscious, on any of the days, of doing aught except our best to accomplish desired results. Sitting down to a game of whist in the evening, we find we cannot get a good hand, shuffle or change the cards as we may. The next evening, or the next morning, high cards and trumps come to us at every deal, as if some good genius had arranged the deal for us. What is this but a run of luck? In gambling, as every gambler knows, men are constantly having such runs. Whatever card or color you lay your stake on is almost sure to win to-day, and to-morrow almost as sure to lose. When you are fortunate, you make your ventures with at least a moderate degree of prudence. When you are unfortunate, your only thought is to get back the money you have parted with, and you keep doubling your stakes in the hope of achieving your purpose, instead of quitting the table, as you ought, when you plainly discover that fate is against you; or, in other words, that some mysterious and incomprehensible influence thwarts your every purpose.