1936 On the Continent

the most cosmopolitan places for gambling on the Riviera. You may think that it is only in Monte Carlo that gambling goes on. This is quite a wrong impression. Nice alone has no less than five big casinos.
    The first of these, the Palais de la Méditerranée, is considered to-day to be one of the most luxurious and up-to-date casinos in the world. If you go into the gaming rooms, with their roulette, trente-et-quarante, baccarat, écarté tables, any time between January and March, and look round at the people playing there, you will probably see, among other famous personalities, princes and even reigning sovereigns, H.M. Gustav V of Sweden seated democratically between a cotton merchant from Sydney and a Polish engineer or Japanese student. You can see there the greatest names in industry, finance, literature, art or science, standing behind the players, or trying theirluck either with the modest green counters of five francs or perhaps with the more imposing “plaques” of 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 francs.
Another Casino
    Then in the Place Masséna you have another casino, the Casino Municipal, meant for a wider public, which has not only the usual roulette and baccarat tables, but the additional attraction of a number of tables of “boule” at which the, lowest “mise” is one franc!
    Those are the two biggest casinos, but there are three others which are just as suitable for those who want to try their luck with or without “systems”: the Casino de la Jetée Promenade, looking out on the sea, the Nouveau Casino, and the Eldorado Casino which was destroyed by fire in March 1936 but will probably be rebuilt and in full swing again soon.
    To give an idea of the popularity of the casinos, you have only to remember that every year hundreds of millions of francs change hands over the green tables, and that in 1935 the French Treasury was the richer by more than thirty million francs of revenue from the tax on gambling in the Nice casinos.
    You needn’t be surprised, then, if in the very hall of your hotel a man, speaking English or French, usually with an oriental accent, comes up to you—just as in Monte Carlo—and tells you that he has got THE secret of winning at roulette, in half an hour and without any risk, a hundred thousand francs with only five hundred francs to start with.
    He would be delighted to place his “system” at your disposal. All you have to do is to buy his booklet of thirty-two pages, in thirty-two languages, among which Esperanto and Yiddish, for the small sum of 127 francs 95 centimes.
Hotels
    In Nice you can easily find the room to suit your taste and your pocket. If you can pay a lot, there are plenty of first-class hotels, and if you can’t, there are “pensions” without number where you can get simple but cleanly lodging and food for the lowest prices. Prices have dropped enormously everywhere in the last few years, and evenat the Negresco—the meeting place of the very highest cosmopolitan society, of the Spanish Royal Family, of the biggest cinema and stage stars (and also the favourite hotel of Léon Blum, the leader of the French Socialist party!)—you can get rooms from 40 francs a day upwards and full board and lodging for 90 francs upwards. The Ruhl is even cheaper (30 and 80 francs). Its clientele is more specifically French. For instance, it is patronised by most of the French statesmen and by the higher ranks of the French army—among whom General Gamelin, Chief of the French Headquarters Staff. At the Hôtel d’Angleterre, where the King of Sweden has stayed every year for the last twenty-five years, the prices of the rooms start at 20 francs and those of full
pension
at 50 francs. The Beau Rivage, Imperator, Luxemburg, Méditerranée, Plage, Royal, West End and Westminster fall more or less into the same category.
    As for Cimiez, the very elegant quarter perched up on the hill some little way from the sea, most of the big hotels there are only open in the winter season. At the Hermitage, the Riviera Palace, and the Winter Palace, where the British aristocracy come to winter, prices range from 40 francs without
pension
and from 80 francs with
pension
.
    For those who cannot afford these prices, there are plenty of cheaper hotels, both near the sea and up in Cimiez. Near the sea you can choose between the Haller, the Prince et Bellevue, the Suisse, the Château Ferber, the Everest, the Le Minaret or the Trois Epis, all of which have rooms from 12