The journal carries a highly turgid summary of the main articles published. A new world opens before your eyes. You are surprised misfortune is such a crucial aspect of mathematics. There’s a bit of everything: from the note on the study of the main instances when gambling can be a reasonable activity and a learned account of the philosophy of gambling, via “The pre-science of natural developments usually attributed to chance” to “Differential gambling with progressions, repayments, and simple and multiple withdrawals on optimum transversals” and “The American multiplier within the reach of the average gambler and generally of every pocket.” I have merely copied a few rubrics, hoping that the reader will agree with me that this material is rather subtle and worthy of consideration in the academy. Reading the summary, as ignorant as the first man, I can only regret that in order win at roulette you need so much study and knowledge, and I wholeheartedly wish that a period of synthesis might predominate and come both to simplify and clarify the exuberant morass thrown up by these exercises in research. When everyone, poor and rich, foolish and wise, young and old, are in a more reasonable position of equality, there can be no doubt that the world, that now leaves much to be desired, will appear before our eyes in more appealing, attractive colors. We should work for equality in matters of culture and scientific thought.
You could diagnose the present state of the problem by exclaiming emphatically: lots of analysis and not much synthesis! Besides, there is another aspect to all this: researchers in the field daily give renewed proof of their selfless humanitarianism. Indeed, it is well known that the researchers with their admirable persistence are tearing away the veils of happenstance, demonstrating in unexpected ways their grip on Pythagorean knowledge par excellence, and yet they are still finding time to write journal articles. They know how to win and, instead of sitting by the gaming tables like roués, driven by the virtues of a sage, they insist on telling others how. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that sublime? Vade retro, specters of pessimism!
If you imagine that gamblers could live in any paradise whatsoever, it is probable that the Côte d’Azur is most like the paradise gamblers might aspire to. It is a place where gamblers have social status and even enjoy a romantic aura. Obviously all that lasts only as long as a gambler’s money. When your money is gone, you join the ranks of the has-beens. It’s natural. Be that as it may, gamblers are esteemed in this country, as smugglers are in Andorra. When you arrive in Andorra and write on your hotel registration form that your usual employment is smuggling, they treat you like a celebrity. Here there’s no need to write anything, because everyone is sure that, come what may, you will leave your financial contribution on one gaming table or another.
After all, it is so exciting! Few people have lingered hereabouts and not, sooner or later, at one moment or another, voluntarily or dutifully, entered a casino and bet a hundred francs. Let’s be sincere: which game do you prefer: roulette, chemin de fer, trente et quarante, or baccarat? Roulette enjoys a long tradition and Pascal took the trouble to calculate probabilities. What a strange fascination! Naturally the pleasurable elements afforded by such excitement diminish and shrink when you think how games of chance give the banker five and a half per cent every game. Everything is so expensive! Nothing we can do about that!
Every country is affected by the nature of its main interests and, consequently, here one is allowed to talk perfectly naturally about gambling, as if it were really important. People here attend to gambling problems as elsewhere they talk about wine, cotton, or iron. From time to time the dailies publish solemnly serious articles against baccarat. There was a time when everyone railed against baccarat. A newcomer thinks: Good God! It was about time they decided to put an end to this immorality, to this abject business of gambling!
The campaign against baccarat is waged on a broad front. Towns that derive lots of money from taxes on gambling — Biarritz, Vichy, Deauville — support it enthusiastically. You are tempted to think a very influential lady must be behind this campaign, one whose husband was bankrupted playing baccarat — a lady with enough energy to orchestrate a general predisposition against the devilish game. But that turns out to be pure fantasy.
The campaign against baccarat stems from its low profit levels. To use the technical terms: baccarat doesn’t leave much lucre in the kitty. The statistical services of the city of Nice have calculated that the city collected two million francs less simply because people played baccarat rather than other games of chance. By playing baccarat tournant, with an open bank, a gambler can make some headway. If people had decided to play roulette, boule, or trente et quarante, those millions of francs would have ended up in the municipal coffers.
What then is the hostility towards baccarat all about? At the end of the day it means that the last game of chance is suppressed, because there isn’t much chance in the others. They are games where eventually you will be fatally fleeced — literally! In the games we have mentioned, the banker has a real, undeniable advantage, because he automatically collects a percentage of all the money that crosses the table. As we have stated repeatedly, this percentage is stipulated. Then there is what the municipality and the state take: the taxman, in a word. If we imagine a set of gamblers rooted round a table, with a limitless bank, after a certain amount of time, all the gamblers will be bankrupted. If the only chance a game permits is the chance to be destined to lose, where does chance come in?
What will the gambler do? Of course, the gambler will continue to play. The gambler pursues what he thinks is his and respects no holidays. To imagine that the accumulation of continual losses will make him stop and ponder for a moment is to have a partial view of his character. Gamblers gamble, whatever the weather, even though good fortune allows a win from time to time …
In my view, Mentone is the most unforgettable spectacle on the Côte d’Azur. The old town is pure Italian and sits on a small promontory that juts out into the sea. On both sides of the town two slopes open out against the gigantic, purple, fluorescent backdrop of the towering end of the Alps. Covered in mansions, palm, rose, pine and olive trees, these baroque, sunny inclines have a lushness that rather sours in the mouth. The old town, on the other hand, brings a minty freshness to the lips.
These old towns by the sea of Genoa are gracious places. Terraced on either of the church — that’s always at the highest point — precipitously poised over the sea, theirs is a proud, active profile. From out to sea you see houses bunched together, the skylights and windows of the houses of the poor and the loggias of ancient palaces. Pigeons fly in and out of the loggias and circle round the belfry. This bronzed panorama of the town, with its green windows and whitewashed terraces is unforgettable and sparkles with charm. These towns, generally, rise up over a natural port that is its infinitely becalmed and silent with sleepy waters. Four old boats sun themselves by the shore, opposite a street of taverns. Out-of-date advertisements hang on the walls and you can often read loud political exclamations on the walls. Viva l’anarchia or Il Papa è … In the afternoon the whole town is reflected in the port, and the occasional school of small fish leaps over the still waters gleaming like a scattered handful of silver coins. At sunset a limp sail sits in the harbor mouth like a fly in a glass of orange juice. And a bell tinkles and a girl’s voice shouts from a terraced roof: Irmaa sei tuu?