There are number of us out there who are great admirers of the work of author Douglas Adams, and can quote the lines he wrote in his Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy series verbatim. There are many more people out there who wish that Orkin or some other pest control company would make a spray for the aforementioned fans of Adams, but that is neither here nor there. In his book Mostly Harmless, Adams describes the effect that the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Corporation had on any planet that the business temporarily called home. In this book he wrote, “Whole cultures and economies would collapse in its wake, often within a week, leaving once-thriving planets desolate and shell-shocked but still somehow feeling they had been part of some great adventure.” While Douglas was not around in the 19th century, this is exactly the effect that the good people of Hamburg, Germany thought legalized gambling would have on their culture. Well, except for the bit about being part of a great adventure. The ensuing persecution of legalized gaming in Hamburg actually resulted in the growth of the gaming industry in Europe.
At the same time that the people in Germany were treating gambling proponents like something that staggered out of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, the tiny country of Monaco was having a problem of their own. They were actively going bankrupt. Due to some territory they had lost to countries that had bigger militaries and liked to test their guns on small, defenseless nations, they lost some regions that grew Monaco’s most valuable exports at the time; lemons, oranges and olives. In order to prop up their sagging economy, the ruling Grimaldis welcomed those early gambling entrepreneurs who were fleeing Hamburg, Germany.
Charles III of Monaco allowed Napoleon Langlois and Albert Aubert to establish German style casinos in Monaco. The first forays into organized Monaco’s gaming industry were in La Condamine in 1862. This was a failure. The kept trying new venues until they hit gold with Monte Carlo. At that point a gambling Mecca was born that persists to this day.
