A game for the grown-ups
Simon Raven
Look first upon this picture: a long and ample table of green baize, on which are deployed three ranks of twelve squares, numbered from 1 to 36, and an extra file, all to itself, for Zero. At the Zero end of the table, a sunken, silent and very slowly revolving wheel, its circumference divided into 37 numbered slots about an inch long by two thirds of an inch wide by half an inch deep at the wheel's rim. In one such slot a white ball the size of a rather large marble. Seated high above the wheel, like a god over Troy but dressed in decent black, the chef du parti, responsible for over-seeing the entire proceedings at this table; below, to left and right of him, two croupiers, attending to the wheel itself and to the roulades of counters which are stacked, end on, against the polished wooden housing that secures the wheel.
Seated along either side of the table is a row of men and women, and standing behind and between them are more men and women, whose faces range from vicious to vacuous, from sodden to hysterical, from weary to aspirant, from mocking to cretinous, but who are all, on the whole, of seemly speech (though they may raise their voices a trifle when calling a bet to a croupier) and of courteous demeanour.
Seated at the far end of the table from the wheel is yet another croupier. His function is to place the wagers as called and paid for by the clientele (on single numbers, or on combinations or types of number) and to see that successful wagers are paid out to the correct people by the two croupiers near the wheel, who must rake in the losing coun
ters, sort them and stack them, then calculate the amounts won and tell out piles of counters for distribution accordingly.
When this has been done, and the new wagers called, paid and placed for the next coup, one of the croupiers by the wheel housing will lift the ball, check the wheel, spin it, slightly faster, the other way about, and then flick the ball round the groove at the top of the inside of the housing in the direction opposite to that in which the wheel is now turning. The ball will circle unhurriedly in the groove many times; eventually it will dip slowly towards the wheel, hesitate, teeter on the wheel's rim, drop into a nunbered slot with a soft 'clunk'. At last, the winner.
The number is announced. Clients and croupiers exchange sombre or excited comments on any peculiarity (such as repetition of the previous number). Then bets are collected or paid out, and such players as have won en plein (i.e. on a single number at odds of thirty-five to one) will pass one thirty-fifth of their winnings (if, that is, they have any manners) to one or other of the croupiers, who receives it on behalf of all employees and drops it into a special box, whereupon all croupiers at the table cry out their thanks in unison: rillerci, m'sieur (ou madame). Pour les employes: merci.'
Such is the scene at any roulette table, whatever the level of the stakes, in any casino in France. Not an edifying scene. A spectacle of greed, waste, mental infatuation, moral dissolution. Yet for what it is, the thing is very well done: precisely controlled, elegantly disciplined, cannily staged to elaborate its inherent melodrama, by no means without a certain laconic humour, difinitely allowing and even encouraging human exchanges between croupiers and players, and always conducted with civility and grace.
Having looked upon this picture of the French School, let us now look upon another, this time English. A casino in London. A narrow and cramped green baize table with a rattly wheel at one end of it. Standing by this wheel a lone young woman, face painted an inch thick, breasts straining as if to take off like rockets, dress flaming with sequins, fingers poised like hooks.
By the cheap and coarse-grained wooden casing which holds the wheel are the counters — not stacked end-on in a few neatly radiating roulades, but crudely and vertically piled, hundreds and hundreds of them, almost all of the lowest denomination current, since winning punters who are paid out entirely in low counters (instead of with a mixture of high and low, as in France) are the more likely to punt them straight back.
On the opposite side of the table, some three or four men and women are cramming their own counters on to the table as fast as they can — and indeed one has to be very fast, as the harpy by the wheel, having clawed up and paid out on the last number in twenty seconds flat (she knows her job all right) is fierce to get the next trip going. This she now does by snatching the ball out of its slot, giving the ill-oiled wheel a furious wrench, and fumbling the ball into the groove at the top of the casing in the hope that it will circle about twice. Less than twice would look rather silly even here; while if the ball went round much longer, the wheel might already have seized up on its filthy spigot, and anyhow there is no leisure to waste on contrived suspense. The ball now crashes down into the wheel (unless it has been so clumsily released that it falls too soon and is thrown right out again across the room by the wheel's first brief and crazy spurt, as often occurs with children's sets in the nursery, for much the same reaons). The Fury screeches the winning number, does not make jokes or comments to the players but slams out the winnings with a snarl, and is not allowed to accept a tip even if anyone wanted to tip her (which would be like tipping Scylla).
'It's instant gambling our customers want,' said the lavatory man while I took a breather (no bars of buffets to relax at here): 'they've no time for foreign frills or fripperies.' I quite believe him. For their faces, as they sweat and shout and grab, are even more bewitched and debased than those of their counterparts in French establishments.
So, no doubt, is my own.
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