Word: crockford
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Londoners are among the world's sportiest gamblers, willing to wager on everything from the greyhounds to whether or not the sun will shine (a hazardous bet, since the daily mean is only 4.16 hours of sunshine in the city). The Clermont Club, Crockford's and the Curzon House Club are the kings of the $3 billion-a-year fever, reigning over tables at which men and women do not gamble because they are on holiday, as they might at Deauville or Baden, but as part of their casual daily entertainment. It is not exceptional to see players...
...Americans like the idea of London, with its big, swanky clubs with ancient gaming names like Crockford's, which first cut a deck in 1824. "We are looking for an elegance that does not exist in the States," explained one. "Here bookmakers are rich, respected men. In the States, they are gangsters." Agreed the doctor from Atlanta: "They're better mannered about it, more cultured and genteel-like, but they're really no different from Vegas. The aim of the game is still to bleed you as quickly as they can without actually spilling...
...aristocracy matched wits and wagers, betting on everything from the Derby to the seduction of a duchess. Crocky's, as it was called, was also known affectionately as The New Pandemonium and. less fondly, as the Fishmonger's, after the original profession of its founder. William Crockford, who made a fortune of some $6,000,000-or what one historian described as "the whole of the ready money of the then existing generation." The club was closed by the 1845 law prohibiting chemmy and almost all other forms of card playing for stakes. After almost a century...
Filing-Cabinet Frenchies. After passage of the new gaming act. Crockford's was bought by an Old Harrovian entrepreneur, blond, beefy Tim Holland. 35, who brags of learning bridge when he was nine. He transformed the club's venerable second floor with $80,000 worth of silk damask wall coverings and 18th century candelabra, imported eight French croupiers and French-made plastic chips representing $1,500,000 (highest chip: $2,800) for four chemmy and eight poker tables. In return for a cut of the take. Businessman Holland persuaded foxy old Isidor Abbecassis. Le Touquet's casino...
...free breakfast with champagne, more than 1,200 top-drawer Britons have joined the club, which Tim Holland modestly calls a "gold mine." Last week, after his casino had been running only ten days. Crocky's new master had already earned the Biblical encomium pinned on Fishmonger Crockford in the 19th century: "He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he. hath sent empty away...