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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz, Volume II

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Doings In Gaming Houses

PLAY IN 1838.

About the year 1838 the gaming houses were kept open all day, the
dice were scarcely ever idle, day or night. From Sunday to
Sunday, all the year round, persons were to be found in these
places, losing their money, and wasting away their very bodies by
the consuming anxiety consequent on their position at the Hazard
or Roulette table.

STATISTICS OF GAMBLING IN 1844.

The following facts came out in evidence before the committee of
the House of Commons, in 1844.

Down to that year there were no less than 12 gaming houses in St
James's and St George's. The play was higher in old times, but
not so GENERAL.

'The increase of gambling houses was entirely the offspring of
Crockford's.' Such was the opinion of the Honourable Frederick
Byng, before the committee, who added, 'that the facility to
everybody to gamble at Crockford's led to the establishment of
other gambling houses fitted up in a superior style, and
attractive to gentlemen who never would have thought of going
into them formerly.'

Previously, in the clubs, the gambling was confined to a very
high rate and to a very few people. The above-named witness said
he 'could have named all the gamblers in his early days at the
clubs. No person coming into a room where Hazard was carried on
would have been permitted to play for a SMALL SUM, and therefore
he left it.'

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