Ich Dien ("I Serve") is the motto of the Prince of Wales. Last week, between the hours of 3:30 a. m. and dawn, H. R. H. served all comers to the Chilean Casino at Vina del Mar as dealer for the "big" baccarat bank.
Chilean reporters who had told their newspapers that H. R. H. went home and to bed "at about 4 a. m. without playing baccarat." felt foolish when the facts came out. Seasoned baccarat players harked back to 1890 when almost the whole English press raged at the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) for baccaratting, when German papers headlined sarcastically "Ich Deal," when the Archbishop of Canterbury had to step in for the honor of the Throne.
The present Edward of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) has very seldom touched baccarat cards or chips, though often he has had his equerry play for him. Play at Vina del Mar is not high. For only 10,000 pesos ($1,200). H. R. H. bought the "bank," i. e. the right to hold and deal cards to the players who would all win to him or lose to him as Fate decreed (there is no "skill," or almost none, in baccarat).
Soon H. R. H. had won 5,000 pesos, gradually rolled his winnings up to 27,000 pesos, then rolled them down again to 420 pesos when he quit at 5:30 a. m. Thus in two hours H. R. H. had netted $50.40, about 4% on his original investment.
To win so little is, in fact, to have better luck than average; but for the Prince of Wales to have actually won only $50.40 was terrible publicity for Vina del Mar. Next night, when Prince George took the bank, Chilean publicity experts reported his winnings as 50,000 pesos ($6,000).
Unlike his grandsire Edward VII, Edward of Wales does not carry about his own chips and baccarat paraphernalia in his luggage, nor does he insist on playing in homes where he is a guest. The 1890 affair revealed that Queen Victoria's eldest son had these habits when it brought the then Prince of Wales into court to testify against a British officer who had been caught cheating H. R. H. by three male witnesses and two females (see cut).
The cheat, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Lieut.-Colonel in the Scots Guards, was forced by H. R. H. to sign a pledge that he would never play cards again for money. But this pledge, despite the fulminations of even the London Times, the future King Edward would not sign.
To the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to him alone, H. R. H. expounded his private reasons, his theory of why royal baccarat is not gambling.
Item: H. R. H. maintained that he carried his own chips about not to encourage high play but to limit it to maximum units of £5. the highest denomination of H. R. H's chips.†
Item: H. R. H. declared: "There is no harm in playing cards for money in itself. . . . Gambling, as I understand the word, is hateful to me."
Item: In a public letter issued from the Archbishop's Palace the Primate of All England accepted in substance H. R. H.'s definition: that playing for money is not "gambling" unless one of the players is making bets larger than he can comfortably lose. Any stricter view the Primate called "holding absurd views as to minute acts."