Faire sauter la banque
11 August 2006
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
I once heard that "breaking the bank" had
something to do with a misbehaving roulette
wheel that paid off vast sums of money to the
person who figured out that it was
malfunctioning. Is that where the term "breaking
the bank" came from in relation to casino
gambling? Mel G.
While bedside reading this past week, Mel, I
happened to uncover the answer to your question
in the just-released, revised version of Kevin
Blackwood's Casino Gambling for Dummies. On page
160, he writes that in Monte Carlo in 1873, an
Englishman named Joseph Jagger identified a
biased roulette wheel where nine numbers were
appearing more often than randomness would
allow. "Jagger pounced, and before the casino
bosses figured out what was going on, he walked
away winning with $350,000, an enormous sum in
his day," Blackwood wrote, regarding the man who
broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
I'm with the Casino Gambling for Dummies author
in that Joseph Jagger was the first famous
gambler to get some publicity in 1873 for
breaking the bank, but, Mel, it was a con
artist, a public relations-thirsty casino owner,
a song, and a music hall star that made the term
"Break the Bank" most memorable.
In French, if a gambler wins more than the chips
that exist on the table, he was said to have
"faire sauter la banque," which actually means
"blown up the bank", but is usually translated
to our milder "broke the bank." If that were
ever to happen, a black shroud would be placed
over the table until reserve chips were brought
to the game. The only time I ever saw a roulette
table come to a complete halt was when a Super
Big Gulp Slurpee tipped over on Red and Odd.
Although no gambler had come close to winning
the whole reserves of the casino, the PR-savvy
owner of the Monte Carlo casino, François Blanc,
was always looking for ways to get
greed-awakening publicity from stories of
winning gamblers.
He found his poster-boy gambler in one Charles
Wells, who in July of 1891 'broke the bank'
twelve times in less than 11 hours, winning over
one million francs. During one run, his number
had come up in 23 of 30 successive spins of the
wheel. In November of the same year, Wells
returned and made another million francs in
three days, including successful bets on the
number five for five successive turns.
Despite hiring a slew of private detectives,
Blanc could never figure out the Wells system.
Wells always maintained that it was just pure
luck, and the system he used was the Martingale,
where you double your next bet after a loss, to
make up for it. (Stupid system; don't trust it.)
What eventually was uncovered was how Wells got
his bankroll in the first place. He conned
wealthy investors into bankrolling bogus
inventions like a musical jump rope and a
fuel-saving invention for steamships. Although
Wells broke the bank six more times, his luck
went south, and he lost not only his own money,
but also that of his investors.
Charged with bilking money from investors by
fraud, he was extradited to England, found
guilty at the Old Bailey and spent eight years
in the slammer. Wells served another three-year
stay for yet another fraud before eventually
immigrating to France, where still another
financial scam earned him five more years. Are
you counting?
In 1892, Fred Gilbert wrote the popular song,
The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, that
was popularized by the music hall star, Charles
Coborn, but the gambler was not Blackwood's
Jagger, but flimflammer Charles Wells, who was
the inspiration for the song.
By the way, Mel, as most gambling stories go,
Wells died penniless in Paris in 1926.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "Lady Luck is like
a politician. She has such few favors to give,
and too many friends to give them to." -- John Gollehon, A Gambler's Little Instruction Book
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