If you can make one heap of all your winnings, and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, I admire you inordinately. Despite myself, I love a heroic gambler. (Except the ones who are running my country, or the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.) So I much enjoyed the story of the "Fat Man", the Syrian businessman Fouad al-Zayat, who has lost £23 million on London's ritzier gambling tables.
I loved his grandstanding sound bite ("This is the only sin I have"), though on further reading, I didn't believe it: Mr al-Zayat has other sins. Having lost £2 million to Aspinall's in a single night, he paid by cheque and then rang up his bank afterwards to tell them to cancel it. Aspinall's had to take him to court to get its £2 million (plus costs), in a case that was finally settled last month.
I loved his grandstanding sound bite ("This is the only sin I have"), though on further reading, I didn't believe it: Mr al-Zayat has other sins. Having lost £2 million to Aspinall's in a single night, he paid by cheque and then rang up his bank afterwards to tell them to cancel it. Aspinall's had to take him to court to get its £2 million (plus costs), in a case that was finally settled last month.
Tut-tut. From the little I know about high-stakes gambling (from Victorian novels, mostly), welshing on one's gaming debts is unheroic. Still, you have to admire the weight of numbers.
The only time I ever gambled heroically was in a town called Robinsonville in Tunica County, Mississippi. I went with a Mississippi native, who'd never been to Las-Vegas-on-the-Delta and wanted to go.
The Horseshoe is a neon-lit building the size of Terminal 4 rising up from the vast flatlands; we picked it from a dozen others. We picked a blackjack table (from around 400) and a man said: "Hi, my name's Alvin, I'll be your croupier for this evening." It was 11 o'clock. As soon as we sat down, a woman asked what we wanted to drink. We said Tennessee whiskey sours; she brought them; they were free. As soon as we drank them, she brought more, also free. She kept coming till four in the morning.
Alvin doled out two cards to everyone on the table and we put down $10 each. After a minute, Alvin said: "Bank wins". We did it again. He said: "Bank wins again, ma'am." After 10 minutes, Alvin became gloomier and gloomier. By 4am, our wallets were empty. I asked Alvin, somewhat unsoberly, why he was being so sour-faced when he kept winning and we kept losing. He said: "Because I'm on the minimum wage and tips, ma'am. People tip me when they win. When you lose money, I lose money." We reeled away.
The thing is that Tunica County chose to gamble. Once the poorest county in America, it's now the US's richest per capita. In Mississippi, gambling was legal so long as you did it "on the water" (hence the river boat casinos). Tunica, being well inland, didn't have much to float on, but a couple of entrepreneurs put a small boat-casino on an irrigation channel off the Mississippi.
The locals noticed that "people from Memphis" were driving down in hordes to chuck money at it, so the whole county upped and voted for gambling. The huge Las Vegas casino chains paid the cotton farmers a lot of money for their land but megabucks for drainage ditches on which to "float" the casinos. You'd never know you were "on the water", but your croupier will point out a small well-like arrangement, with black water gleaming at the bottom.
What became Las-Vegas-on-the-Delta was not a decision thrust on Tunica County by the federal government. They didn't get gambling because President Reagan thought a supercasino was a good idea, but because some locals thought was a good idea.
In Blackpool, some locals thought it was a good idea as well. In the very early 1990s the billionaire Trevor Hemmings, who owns Leisure Parcs, floated the idea of Blackpool becoming a casino resort. He thought it would regenerate the place (and something had to). All sorts of people got behind him and the Blackpool bidders lobbied Parliament for a "resort casino". They provided MPs with much documentation about regeneration.
Meanwhile, Mr Hemmings spent £74 million on a big chunk of the Golden Mile, where he thought a resort casino would sit nicely.
What happened next is so depressing it hardly bears recalling. The Government, in the person of Tessa Jowell, seized on the Blackpool bid and ran off to Tony with it. She was just loving the whole idea of "regeneration", frankly. Regenerating depressed parts of Britain was a fabulous idea. Doing it at no cost to the Chancellor's purse was too fantastic for words. In minutes, there was a government plan for "resort casinos". Why stop at one?
Blackpool should have noticed that the Government's documentation immediately dropped "resort" from its documents and changed it to "regional" casinos. Perhaps they did notice. "Regional", like "regeneration", is one of New Labour's keywords.
Once "Blackjack-Lil" Jowell had highjacked the Blackpool bid and turned it into the baffling and bothersome Gambling Bill 2005, there was no stopping the lunacy that followed: the cowboy boots, the croupier poses, the ranch, the Dome, the snapping in Parliament about "not bringing Las Vegas style tricks of the trade into Britain". (Some hope. Those guys know what they're doing, even if she doesn't.)
I don't care what Fat Men do with their squillions at Aspinall's: good luck to them. I don't believe that a supercasino will "regenerate" an already regenerated Manchester, or pay for the Olympics, or provide jobs for thousands in depressed parts of Britain. (British casinos don't allow tipping.)
What I hate is when every aspect of British life becomes an arm of government and a Treasury resource, to be fleeced at will (the Chancellor is looking forward to the many £££s he will make from online gambling). Jowell famously said her Bill was "100 per cent regulation and 99 per cent protection". Makes the flesh creep, that sort of remark.
Why the Treasury loves a gambler Dt Opinion Opinion Telegraph
The only time I ever gambled heroically was in a town called Robinsonville in Tunica County, Mississippi. I went with a Mississippi native, who'd never been to Las-Vegas-on-the-Delta and wanted to go.
The Horseshoe is a neon-lit building the size of Terminal 4 rising up from the vast flatlands; we picked it from a dozen others. We picked a blackjack table (from around 400) and a man said: "Hi, my name's Alvin, I'll be your croupier for this evening." It was 11 o'clock. As soon as we sat down, a woman asked what we wanted to drink. We said Tennessee whiskey sours; she brought them; they were free. As soon as we drank them, she brought more, also free. She kept coming till four in the morning.
Alvin doled out two cards to everyone on the table and we put down $10 each. After a minute, Alvin said: "Bank wins". We did it again. He said: "Bank wins again, ma'am." After 10 minutes, Alvin became gloomier and gloomier. By 4am, our wallets were empty. I asked Alvin, somewhat unsoberly, why he was being so sour-faced when he kept winning and we kept losing. He said: "Because I'm on the minimum wage and tips, ma'am. People tip me when they win. When you lose money, I lose money." We reeled away.
The thing is that Tunica County chose to gamble. Once the poorest county in America, it's now the US's richest per capita. In Mississippi, gambling was legal so long as you did it "on the water" (hence the river boat casinos). Tunica, being well inland, didn't have much to float on, but a couple of entrepreneurs put a small boat-casino on an irrigation channel off the Mississippi.
The locals noticed that "people from Memphis" were driving down in hordes to chuck money at it, so the whole county upped and voted for gambling. The huge Las Vegas casino chains paid the cotton farmers a lot of money for their land but megabucks for drainage ditches on which to "float" the casinos. You'd never know you were "on the water", but your croupier will point out a small well-like arrangement, with black water gleaming at the bottom.
What became Las-Vegas-on-the-Delta was not a decision thrust on Tunica County by the federal government. They didn't get gambling because President Reagan thought a supercasino was a good idea, but because some locals thought was a good idea.
In Blackpool, some locals thought it was a good idea as well. In the very early 1990s the billionaire Trevor Hemmings, who owns Leisure Parcs, floated the idea of Blackpool becoming a casino resort. He thought it would regenerate the place (and something had to). All sorts of people got behind him and the Blackpool bidders lobbied Parliament for a "resort casino". They provided MPs with much documentation about regeneration.
Meanwhile, Mr Hemmings spent £74 million on a big chunk of the Golden Mile, where he thought a resort casino would sit nicely.
What happened next is so depressing it hardly bears recalling. The Government, in the person of Tessa Jowell, seized on the Blackpool bid and ran off to Tony with it. She was just loving the whole idea of "regeneration", frankly. Regenerating depressed parts of Britain was a fabulous idea. Doing it at no cost to the Chancellor's purse was too fantastic for words. In minutes, there was a government plan for "resort casinos". Why stop at one?
Blackpool should have noticed that the Government's documentation immediately dropped "resort" from its documents and changed it to "regional" casinos. Perhaps they did notice. "Regional", like "regeneration", is one of New Labour's keywords.
Once "Blackjack-Lil" Jowell had highjacked the Blackpool bid and turned it into the baffling and bothersome Gambling Bill 2005, there was no stopping the lunacy that followed: the cowboy boots, the croupier poses, the ranch, the Dome, the snapping in Parliament about "not bringing Las Vegas style tricks of the trade into Britain". (Some hope. Those guys know what they're doing, even if she doesn't.)
I don't care what Fat Men do with their squillions at Aspinall's: good luck to them. I don't believe that a supercasino will "regenerate" an already regenerated Manchester, or pay for the Olympics, or provide jobs for thousands in depressed parts of Britain. (British casinos don't allow tipping.)
What I hate is when every aspect of British life becomes an arm of government and a Treasury resource, to be fleeced at will (the Chancellor is looking forward to the many £££s he will make from online gambling). Jowell famously said her Bill was "100 per cent regulation and 99 per cent protection". Makes the flesh creep, that sort of remark.
Why the Treasury loves a gambler Dt Opinion Opinion Telegraph
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