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. The names of only a few of the men who broke the bank are known, and some are listed below.

Charles Deville Wells won large sums of money at Monte Carlo when he attended the casino in July–August and November, 1891. He inspired the song, The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, which was published in late 1891 or early 1892.

In the early 1890s the partnership of Lord Rosslyn and Sam Lewis broke the bank by betting on black, according to an account written by the famous inventor, Sir Hiram Maxim. 'There was great excitement [Maxim wrote]; hundreds of people were crowding about the table, and everybody that could stake a louis [a small gold coin worth 20 fr.] staked on black, and black continued to come up for seventeen times. Then on the eighteenth coup, which was red, Lord Rosslyn and Mr Lewis each lost 12,000 fr. This was the longest run that I had ever witnessed at Monte Carlo.'

US Steel magnate Charles M. Schwab is reported to have broken the bank at Monte Carlo.

This Scottish industrialist was the father of Kenneth Clark the art historian. It is stated that he 'enjoyed gambling and frequented the Casino at Monte Carlo where he met with regular and extraordinary luck. According to Clark, after one such successful evening of roulette, he bought a small, recently created golf course at Sospel, behind Mentone, and then built a hotel there.'

Arthur Bower (the self-styled ″Captain Arthur de Courcy Bower″) was a convicted fraudster who had been sentenced to six months hard labour in 1904. He was subsequently 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. 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.

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Wikipedia