Breaking the bank in the playground of kings
July 1891, high noon in Monte Carlo, then as now a surreal resort for the world’s elite, and a paunchy bald man with pork-chop sideburns walked into the golden light of the Place du Casino.
He must have looked like a pickpocket threading his way through Europe’s first and finest gambling hall, parting the Von’s and De’s in room after room of cigar-scented millionaires and playboy archdukes. He was an untitled interloper, but when he found a roulette table, he bet like a king.
