All Topics  
Monte Carlo Casino

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Monte Carlo Casino
 
 
  Topics Monte Carlo Casino Topic Home

The Monte Carlo Casino is one of the most famous tourist attractions of Monaco. The casino complex is a gambling facility which also includes the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo, an opera and ballet house, and the headquarters of the Ballets de Monte Carlo. It is situated in the Monte Carlo quarter, although the citizens of Monaco are forbidden to enter the gaming rooms. It hosts the annual European Poker Tour
European Poker Tour

The Pokerstars.com European Poker Tour began in 2004 as part of the worldwide explosion in Texas Hold 'em popularity. It is a series of televised poker Poker tournament similar to those in the World Poker Tour ....
 Grand Final, the most prestigious poker tournament
Poker tournament

A poker tournament is a tournament in which the winners are decided by playing poker, usually a particular style of poker.Contrast this to a ring game, where the game is ongoing with no formal structure to determine a single winner in a certain length of time....
 in Europe.

The casino is owned by the Société des Bains de Mer , a public company, in which the government holds a majority interest.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Monte Carlo Casino'
Start a new discussion about 'Monte Carlo Casino'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


The Monte Carlo Casino is one of the most famous tourist attractions of Monaco. The casino complex is a gambling facility which also includes the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo, an opera and ballet house, and the headquarters of the Ballets de Monte Carlo. It is situated in the Monte Carlo quarter, although the citizens of Monaco are forbidden to enter the gaming rooms. It hosts the annual European Poker Tour
European Poker Tour

The Pokerstars.com European Poker Tour began in 2004 as part of the worldwide explosion in Texas Hold 'em popularity. It is a series of televised poker Poker tournament similar to those in the World Poker Tour ....
 Grand Final, the most prestigious poker tournament
Poker tournament

A poker tournament is a tournament in which the winners are decided by playing poker, usually a particular style of poker.Contrast this to a ring game, where the game is ongoing with no formal structure to determine a single winner in a certain length of time....
 in Europe.

The casino is owned by the Société des Bains de Mer , a public company, in which the government holds a majority interest. This corporation also owns the principal hotels and clubs of the community that serve the tourist trade.

The route of the Monaco Grand Prix
Monaco Grand Prix

The Monaco Grand Prix is a Formula One race held each year on the Circuit de Monaco. Run since 1929, it is widely considered to be one of the most important and prestigious automobile races in the world alongside the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans ....
 (the Circuit de Monaco
Circuit de Monaco

Circuit de Monaco is the name given to a motor racing circuit laid out on the city streets of Monte Carlo and La Condamine around the harbour of the principality of Monaco....
) runs past the casino.

Facilities


The casino has facilities to play a variety of games which include:
  • Different kinds of Roulette
    Roulette

    Roulette is a casino and gambling game named after the French language word meaning "small wheel". In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a number, a range of numbers, the color red or black, or whether the number is odd or even....
  • Stud poker
    Stud poker

    Stud poker is any of a number of poker List of poker variantss in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds....
  • Blackjack
    Blackjack

    Blackjack is the most widely played casino game banking game in the world. Much of blackjack's popularity is due to the mix of chance with elements of skill, and the publicity that surrounds card counting ....
  • Trente et Quarante
    Trente et Quarante

    Trente et Quarante , also called Rouge et Noir , is a game of France origin played with cards and a special table. It is one of the two games played in the gambling rooms at Monte Carlo, roulette being the other....
  • Craps
    Craps

    Craps is a dice game played against other players or a bank. Craps developed from a simplification of the Old English game Hazard . Its origins are highly complex and may date to the Crusades, later being influenced by French gamblers....
  • Baccarat
    Baccarat

    'Baccarat' is a casino game card game. It is believed to have been introduced into France from Italy during the reign of Charles VIII of France , and it is similar to Faro and to Basset....
  • Video poker
    Video poker

    Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console similar in size to a slot machine....
  • Slot machine
    Slot machine

    A slot machine , fruit machine , or poker machine is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed....
    s


There is a special poker room for the very wealthy.

The complex also includes a theater and a restaurant.

There is also a garden behind the casino with a terrace from which Bordighera
Bordighera

Bordighera is a town and comune the in the Province of Imperia, Liguria ....
 in Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 can be seen.

Architecture


The casino was built by the architect
Architect

An architect is trained and licenced in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e....
 Charles Garnier
Charles Garnier (architect)

Charles Garnier was a France architect, designer of the Op?ra Garnier and the Op?ra de Monte-Carlo....
 who also created the Paris opéra
Palais Garnier

The Palais Garnier, also known as the Op?ra de Paris or Op?ra Garnier, but more commonly as the Paris Op?ra, is a 2,200-seat opera house on the Place de l'Op?ra in Paris, France....
. It is distinctly Beaux Arts - an Empire style referred to by Garnier (regarding the Paris Opéra) as "Napoleon III."

History

In 1854 gambling
Gambling

Gambling is the wikt:wager#Verb of money or something of material Value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods....
 was legalized by prince Florestan I
Florestan I, Prince of Monaco

Florestan I, Prince of Monaco was the eight sovereign List of rulers of Monaco of Monaco and the eighth Duke of Valentinois from 2 October 1841 until his death....
.

In 1856 the first casino was opened in a villa near the harbor.

Prince Charles the third
Charles III, Prince of Monaco

Charles III, Prince of Monaco was the ninth reigning Prince of Monaco and the ninth Duke of Valentinois from 20 June 1856 to his death. He was the founder of the famous casino in Monte Carlo....
 ordered the construction of a new quarter called Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo is one of Monaco's various administrative areas, sometimes erroneously believed to be a town or the country's capital. The official capital is Monaco-Ville and covers all quarters of the territory....
. A new casino was also part of this plan.

The construction of the current building started in 1858. To make the casino more successful a 50-year concession to operate the gaming rooms was granted to a private individual named François Blanc In 1861. In 1863 the new facility was opened.

Since 1898 the concession has been operated by the Société des Bains de Mer.

In 1910 the building was expanded with a theatre.

The casino in movies

  • James Bond
    James Bond

    James Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections....
    , fictional British
    United Kingdom

    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
     spy and protagonist of the Bond book and movie series, is often associated with the city's glamorous Belle Époque
    Belle Époque

    The Belle ?poque was a period in history of Europe that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the time of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, the "Belle ?poque" was named in retrospect, when it began to be considered a "golden age" for the upper classes, as peace prevailed among the m...
     casino. This was a model for the setting of Ian Fleming
    Ian Fleming

    Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English literature author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling his adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories....
    's first Bond novel, Casino Royale
    Casino Royale (novel)

    Casino Royale by Ian Fleming is the first James Bond novel. It would eventually pave the way for eleven other novels by Fleming himself in addition to two short story anthology, followed by many 'continuation' Bond novels by other authors....
     (1953), 'Royale-Les-Eaux' being a fictional resort in the style of Monte Carlo. The real Monte Carlo and its casino provided one of the glamorous locations for the James Bond movies, Never Say Never Again
    Never Say Never Again

    Never Say Never Again, released in 1983 in film by Orion Pictures and Warner Bros., is a non-EON Productions remake of the 1965 James Bond film, Thunderball ....
     and GoldenEye
    GoldenEye

    GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond James Bond , and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional character Secret Intelligence Service agent James Bond ....
    .
  • The film Once Upon A Crime
    Once Upon A Crime

    Once Upon A Crime is a 1992 ensemble cast comedy starring, among others; Richard Lewis , John Candy, Jim Belushi, Cybill Shepherd and Ornella Muti....
     also takes place in Monte Carlo.
Many famous people have stayed there including 2 queens, a king and many famous actors.

Breaking the bank


  • In 1873, Joseph Jagger
    Joseph Jagger

    Joseph Hobson Jagger was a United Kingdom engineer, referred to as, but not an exclusive holder of the title of, The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo....
     gained the casino great publicity by "breaking the bank at Monte Carlo" by discovering and capitalizing on a bias in one of the casino's roulette
    Roulette

    Roulette is a casino and gambling game named after the French language word meaning "small wheel". In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a number, a range of numbers, the color red or black, or whether the number is odd or even....
     wheels. Technically, the bank in this sense was the money held on the table by the croupier
    Croupier

    A croupier or dealer is a casino employee who takes and pays out bets or otherwise assists at a gambling table. In United States usage, dealer may imply a card game, but this is not always the case....
    . According to an article in The Times
    The Times

    The Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register.The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of News International....
     in the late 19th century, it was thus possible to break the bank several times. The 1892 song The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, made famous by Charles Coburns, was probably inspired by the exploits of Charles Wells
    Charles Wells (gambler)

    Charles Deville Wells , gambler and Conman, is one of the men who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, made famous by the song. Joseph Jagger was the first famous gambler to get publicity in 1873 but the song was not written until 1892 and so it seems that Wells is a more likely inspiration for the song....
    , who broke the bank on many occasions on the first two of his three trips.
  • According to the book Busting Vegas
    Busting Vegas

    Busting Vegas a non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, author of New York Times Best Seller Bringing Down the House. It describes the gambling activities of a group of MIT students who in the early 1990s made millions by using their mathematics and card skills to change the odds of blackjack in their favor....
     by Ben Mezrich
    Ben Mezrich

    Ben Mezrich is an American author from Boston, Massachusetts, who started out writing fiction but later expanded into non-fiction. He graduated magna-cum-laude from Harvard in 1991....
    , a team
    MIT Blackjack Team

    The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, and other leading colleges who utilized Card counting techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide....
     of blackjack players recruited from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
     by team-leader Victor Cassius attempted to break the bank at Monte Carlo with the assistance of a team-play-based system. The book describes how the management of Monte Carlo responded to the progress of the team, whose members included Semyon Dukach
    Semyon Dukach

    'Semyon Dukach' is a former professional blackjack player with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blackjack team. He played with MIT Blackjack Team and later was one of the founding members and team leaders on Amphibian Investments whose exploits were chronicled in Ben Mezrich?s Busting Vegas and referred to in Mezrich?s Bringing...
     and others mentioned by aliases.


Trivia

  • It is illegal for citizens of the Principality of Monaco, Monégasques, even to enter the casino. Visitors are asked to show their passport as they pay the entrance fee. Even the royal family uses a side entrance to attend ballet and opera performances in the formal theater part of the casino building.


  • The casino building also houses a restaurant, Le Train Bleu, named for the famous all-first-class railroad link
    Le Train Bleu (passenger train)

    Le Train Bleu , officially the Calais-Mediterranee Express, was a luxury France night express train which carried wealthy and famous passengers between Calais and the French Riviera from 1922 until 1938....
     that greatly increased the casino's (and thus the Principality's) fortunes.


Further reading


  • History of Monaco
    History of Monaco

    The early history of Monaco is primarily concerned with the protective and strategic value of the Rock of Monaco, the area's chief geological landmark, which served first as a shelter for ancient peoples and later as a fortress....
  • House of Grimaldi
    House of Grimaldi

    The House of Grimaldi is associated with the history of the Republic of Genoa and of the Principality of Monaco....
  • Monaco
    Monaco

    Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a small sovereign city-state located in South Western Europe . The territory lies on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea....
  • Monte Carlo


External links