Men who broke the bank at Monte Carlo

The Casino at Monte Carlo was inaugurated in 1863. Since then the bank has been broken on a number of occasions. The expression ′to break the bank′ is used when a gambler wins more money than the reserve held at that particular table in the casino. At the start of each day, every table was funded with a cash reserve of 100,000 francs – known as ‘the bank’. If this reserve was insufficient to pay the winnings, play at that table was suspended while extra funds were brought out from the casino’s vaults. In a ceremony devised by François Blanc, the original owner of the casino, a black cloth was laid over the table in question, and the successful player was said to have broken the bank. After an interval the table re-opened and play continued.^[1] The names of only a few of the men who broke the bank are known, and some are listed below.

Joseph Jagger (or Jaggers)

In his 1901 book, Monte Carlo Anecdotes and Systems of Play,^[2] the Hon. Victor Bethell writes about a man named Jaggers, ′a Yorkshireman, and a mechanic by trade′, who went to the casino in the 1870s. Jaggers' engineering experience told him that no roulette wheel could be mechanically perfect, and that any flaw in the wheel might result in a bias toward certain numbers. Assisted by a team of six clerks, he is said to have identified a wheel which displayed such a bias and backed those numbers which came up more often than others. Bethell claims that Jaggers won £120,000 [equivalent to about £12 million today]. However, searches of a number of on-line newspaper archives (including The Times Digital Archive and the British Newspaper Archives) reveal no references to Jagger at the time of his supposed wins. (The Wikipedia article on Joseph Jagger was deleted in about 2014 owing to the lack of credible supporting evidence). Yet, after Bethell's book appeared in 1901, the story was often repeated in newspapers as well as in other books. Since contemporary reports appear to be lacking, it may be best to assume that Bethell created this story for his book. (This assumption would of course be overturned if evidence to support his account were to be subsequently found). A man named Joseph Hobson Jagger (without the ′s′) has been linked to the legend of Jaggers (with an ′s′) but little evidence, if any, has been found for this connection. It is probable that the similarity between the names 'Jagger' and 'Jaggers' has led to a false conclusion being reached.

Charles Deville Wells

Charles Deville Wells won large sums of money at Monte Carlo during two visits to the casino in 1891. He inspired the song, The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, which was published in late 1891 or early 1892. ^[3]

Arthur de Courcy Bower

Arthur Bower (the self-styled ″Captain Arthur de Courcy Bower″) was reported to have won the maximum payout eighteen times in a row, and to have broken the bank five times on a visit to the casino in 1911.^[4] Certain published works claim that it was Bower who inspired the popular song but as his casino wins occurred some twenty years after the song was published, this would seem an impossibility.

References

1. Herald, G. W. and Radin, E. D.: The Big Wheel (London: Robert Hale, 1965)
2. Bethell, V.: Monte Carlo Anecdotes and Systems of Play (London: William Heinemann, 1901)
3. The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo: Charles Deville Wells, Gambler and Fraudster Extraordinaire by Robin Quinn (Stroud: The History Press: ISBN 0750961775: projected publication date September 2016)
4. The Cornishman, 19 January 1911