Roulette and Trente et Quarante at the Casino de Monte-Carlo, unrecorded edition

Roulette and Trente et Quarante at the Casino de Monte-Carlo, unrecorded edition. An intriguing account of Monte Carlo, its celebrated casino, and the gambling games of roulette and trente-et-quarante, offering several gambling strategies, accompanied by four illustrations and several tables.

The author’s identity remains a mystery, but he was evidently familiar with the excitement of gambling in Monte Carlo—including the ever-present hope of beating the house. This publication was explicitly written to help novice players—likely German-speaking tourists—avoid losing all their money because of a lack of knowledge.

Divided into three parts, it covers Monte Carlo, the rules of roulette and trente-et-quarante, and, finally, gambling strategies. “At the gaming table, one usually loses the proper sense of the value of money” (“Am Spieltisch verliert man meist das richtige Verständnis für den Wert des Geldes”), the author notes in his concluding remarks. The reader would do well to heed this warning.

This second edition (“zweite Auflage”) is apparently not recorded in WorldCat, which lists only three copies of a presumed first edition published in the same year. According to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, that edition was published in Oppeln (now Opole, Poland) by Zoff.