Evening Star Newspaper, March 23, 1930, Page 97

Lucky-Number Quest Leads the Fortune Hunters to Choose Playing Numerals by Hunches, House ~or Hymn Numbers, - Cows in Field, Hat and Door Checks, Drinks on Bar or Waiters in Hotel. 3Y R. S. FENDRICK. FAMOUS sporting English peer sauntered up to the casino one Sunday morning a few weeks ago and, having a few minutes to spare before lunch, stepped in to watch the roulette wheels spinning. “Thirty-two wins!” a chorus of voices, most- 1y feminine, rang through the glittering temple of chance. 2 “Why, it's the number of the last hymn sung at the service this morning,” the noble- man murmured to himself. “That’s an odd coincidence. Dashed if I don't put a quid on it. If I win, it will be a good joke to tell the vicar.” 3y a strange stroke of luck—it is lucky, indeed, to win at a game in which the house takes 5 per cent of all the money on the table at every turn of the wheel—the Englishman saw 32 come up again and pushed a big pile of money on the number for the next spin. “I must go to divine service more often if every hymn number is a tip,” he murmured @again, this time more firmly. Playing the same number doggedly and pyramiding his winnings, the peer had an extraordinary run of good fortune. The god- dess of chance is like that. For a dozen spins the capricious wheel may stop at the same number almost every time, and then not repeat the performance for years. And that explains why the following Sunday the lucky peer, never noted for his piety, had installed himself in the front row a full 10 minutes before the service began, why he joined in singing hymn No. 26 with fervor and why the vicar found a 10,000-franc chip ($400) from the casino gaming tables in the collection plate that dav. THE clergymen who come to Monaco from America and England every little while to serve a period at the chapels here are great- 1y upset to find their collection plates often heaped with roulette chips after a Sunday morning service, but that is an old custom in churches of all deonminations in Monte Carlo. “n reality, it is not the devout church peo- pie who do it, but usually professional game- sters. All these persons serve one superstition or another and have their own pet ways of picking lacky numbers. There is one popular school’ of superstition fervently convinced that hymn numbers are sure to win, and they for- sake their gaming every Sunday morning long enough to go to some church. If all the hymns for that day are above 36—the rou- lette wheel has only 36 numbers and zero— they are desolate and consider the coming week lost, unless they do the next best thing and take the number of a biblical text. These curious folk generally put a fat offering in the plate in the shape of a Casino counter, or chip, as they are more likely to have these than money. ‘These church-going gamblers, including every known nationality from tropical Afri- cans to Chinesc mandarins, heve a strange MHE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, b. C, ‘All sorts of methods are used by roulette players at Monte Carlo to select lucky numbers. MARCH 23, 1930. 16 Some favor hymn numbers, others use complicated mathematical formulas, astrology or even consult a crystal-gazer. psychology. I cynically asked one of them, a hard-boiled English bookmaker, why he didn't bride the church sexton to get the numbers in advance and thereby save an hour or two of churchgoing that he might have spent at the Casino.” “I warn you, lad, don't ever iry that,” he exclaimed in a fearful tone. “That wouldn't be playing cricket. If you want to make the hymn p'unbers smile, you must be sincere. It would w< an awful sin to go to church just to ; you must go to join in y jot down the number ew a fellow once, and a , who got his number in then slipped out before the know what happened to him? chappie lost every bob he had ber and then walked into this and blew his lights out. He’s on the hill now with just a tombstone. No, no, my friend; square with the vicar.” hymn followers are only one of the perstitious types that flourish here. example, take the peek-a-boo school, who legion. t is the simplest, cheapest and probably just ientific as any of the other systems of g & lucky number. If you are rushing posthaste by motor car in order to place investment without a moment's delay— don't laugh; the average gambler literally breaks his neck to get to Monaco and fling his money away quickly—you*close your eyes as you enter the principality, count one, two, three, say a magic word, open your eyes sud- denly and look at the number of the first on the right, or left, if you prefer. If umber is over 36 you try again. ‘There are & million variations of this prin- ciple, and you will meet people here who will swear that they have won a dozen fortunes by following it—and then touch you for a few francs for a lunch. Another major group of suckers place all their confidence in “astrologues” and “chairo- manciennes,” vulgarly' called fortune-tellers, paying anywhere from $5 to $50 for the little numeral that will break the bank: I had one of these “astrologues” pointed out to me. She was a faded, tired-looking old woman of about EEgEcE EEE§§§§§§§§§ G§E§§ g § t gt 4] I explained in my most hopeful manner that I had come to ask her to help find my lucky number. ‘ “Certainly I can,” she exclaimed. *“The goddess Isis knows everything and she will communicate the number to me. You can be absolutely sure of making a fortune here. One of my clients won 10,000,000 francs last week. “Now tell me the exact date of yonr birth.” I told her. “And the exact place you were born.” I was about to blurt out America, but a little inner voice whispered that she was setting a trap and that a self-confessed American would pay the top price. “Constantinople, Turkey,” I replied, looking her straight in the eyes. “I thought from your accent that you wcre an American,” she shot back accusingly. “I went to the American College in Constan- tinople, but I'm pure Turk,” I lied. ‘The scrubwoman-princess made some calcu- lations on the date of my birth, gazed deeply into the crystal ball and then looked up with a confident smile. “I have received your number from the stars and I can tell you, too, that you have a green aura, which means very good fortune,’ kut she stopped there without mentioning the number, and I took the cue. “And what is the price of the seance?” ‘5;'1)'en dollars!” (Special price for Americans, I looked horrified, cried that I was only a poor Turk with a few piastres, waved my hands, threatened to.weep and finally argued he down to $1, which is exactly double what a French- man or an Italian would have coughed up. “And my lucky. number,” I whispered brokenly, being ‘out of breath. “Sixteen,” she snapped, and pushed a button for the next sucker to be shown in. Out of curiosity, I walked over to the Casino, watched a dozen wheels spinning for more than :x’:nhourlndnemnwloeomeuptm e, There are hundreds of these old wome Monte Carlo who read fortunes in stars, e‘rdsn - and_ crystal balls, and the Casino does every- thing possible to encourage others to come here. They are a useful cog in the machinery of making fools believe in luck. The press agents who telegraph stories all over the world about people winning big sums on the roulette tables are another cog. The stark truth is that all players lose, in the end, even though they gain temporarily. How can any one beat a game in which the house takes out 5 per cent of all the money on the table—not once a year, but every few min- utes? As regards roulette, there was one single ex- ception in 70 years to this rule of ruination. An American named Darnborough won $420,000 ° in 1909 and 1910, mostly on numbers 26, 290 and - 32, and then left the principality. The “king of roulette players” has never returned. AMONG the lesser schools of superstitious - number pickers there are the cloak room ticket fiends, who will stake their last franc on the numeral on their hat check; the time fans, who bet on any hour the clock strikes; the dreamers, who see 10 cows in a field during a nightmare and believe that is a lucky omen, and the gourmet who counts 15 waiters in the restaurant and gets a hunch. ol i In addition to all these incoherent methods . for reaping a fortune, “A Month in Monte Carle at the Casino’s Expense”—as the tipster sheets are often entitled—there are thousands, or even tens of thousands, of persons who try to work out the solution a little more scientifically. * For example, there is the class that solemnly study the last performances of the tricky little wheels. A weekly newspaper at Monte Carle ’ gives a complete record of play of all the 23 wheels, showing how often every number came - up. But this leads to nothing. The history of a million spins reveals that, when the wheel is perfectly balanced, as it is here, the little tvery ball, which is spun in the reverse direction from which the wheel is going, will fall into the 37 numbers an equal number of times. One num- ber does not have a hair's-breadth advantage over another. Then there are the mathematiclans, including some of the greatest in Europe, who have worked it out by all manner of formulas and come to the same conclusion. That, howeveg, has not stopped them from writing whole Me - braries on. the subject. The bibliography en the subject is enormous. 60, but dressed in furs, silks and diamonds. She was a retired scrubwoman who had been well inspired to abandon cleaning floors for reading the stars. Presenting myself a few minutes later, I was ushered into a nchly decorated Oriental ‘divan hung with swastikas and other mystic designs. And then I rubbed my eyes in wonder when the lady entered. I WOULD have sworn I was in the presence of an Egyptian princess of the Pharaoh dynasties, a reincarnation of one of Tut's sisters! A queer robe, a bit of brown paint oa her face, hoop earrings big enough for a cat to jump through, a headpiece that lpoked as if it might have been stolen from a museum, a few drops of some drug to msake her eyes sparkle and incense burning on a pseudo altar had lifted 30 years from the scrubwoman's figure and pushed her back 30 centuries! With- out even noticing me, she made some mystic passes before the altar, gazed decply into a crystal ball and then looked up with a fricndly smile. “You must excuse me,” she said in a cracked voice. “I am @& priestess of the sect of Isis, and I must make my devotions every morning before doing anything else. The gods and goddesses are jealous and must be served.” Engrossed in the play, the wealthy Scotchman wearing the white coat and his fellow gamblers were wholly unaware that they were bging photographed. The world’s most famous palace of chance, the Casino in Monte Carlo, where countless thousands have staked their all on the spin of the Wheel.