If players had unlimited capital, and were allowed without check to adopt the martingale or pyramid system, they would run small chance of losing. This consists in choosing a _cadre_ and playing resolutely upon it, each time doubling the stake, until that which is backed wins, which it is certain to do if continued long enough. When it wins, the player has recovered the total of his stakes plus one, except the toll on zero, whereupon he would revert to the minimum stake. But the bank knows this as well as any one, and draws a line beyond which there is no doubling allowed.
At roulette, the minimum stake is five francs; but at trente-et-quarante, a game at cards, the lowest stake is twenty francs. The amount of systems proposed, published, and advertised, is prodigious: every one has his system, who is an enthusiastic gambler, and every one has led to confusion and loss. One hears at intervals of lucky players who have broken the bank. But what guarantee have we that these are not decoy ducks, or at all events persons allowed to do so, as an advertisement, and a means of luring other persons to try their chance to do the same? The last of those who has written is one Josephine Lorenz, _Schaff dir Gold in Monte Carlo_, published at Munich in 1905. Sir Hiram Maxim in his _Monte Carlo_, London, 1904, tells a significant story about the breaking of the bank by Lord Rosslyn and the late Mr. Sam Lewis. After about seven consecutive wins, it was said that the bank had been broken; a bell was rung, and a factor of the bank was summoned and required to bring a fresh supply of money. It was delivered, the play proceeded, and a second time the bank was broken. This led to immense excitement: hundreds of people crowded about the table and followed the lead of the two lucky stakers, with their smaller ventures. The next time they won on seventeen coups; after that, however, each lost 12,000 francs, and those who had docilely followed them lost also. The bank was not really broken the third time, but pretended and proclaimed that it had been.
“However,” says Sir Hiram, “my suspicions were excited; I did not believe for a moment that the bank had actually been broken. I knew that there had been a great deal of play during the day, and that the winnings at this particular table must have been very heavy indeed. I therefore remained to see the money taken from the table, when I found it was exactly as I had expected; there was at least a peck of large bank notes. It had not been necessary for the bank to send for money at all; this had been done for effect. It was telegraphed all over the world that Lord Rosslyn and Mr. Sam Lewis had broken the bank three consecutive times in a single evening. True, the bank had lost money, but they turned it into a valuable advertisement.”