 
TheComeback of Monte Carlo by Richard Geller
A place where High Rollers are defined by different standards...
When I first set foot in Monaco I was just about broke. True story. It was mid-March 1986, and I’d been hanging around Europe since January. Most of my time had been spent in Zurich, or more accurately, trying to get out of Zurich. Don’t ask.
Anyway, I ended up in the south of France with only about $30 to my name. There was only one thing to do - well, there were several, but only one that wasn’t guaranteed to degenerate into some bad cartoon. I put on my cleanest dirty shirt, got into the Casino de Monte-Carlo - the American games room does not require tie and jacket, thank God - and managed to win enough at the slots and then the craps table to catch a train to Holland. Where I met my future wife. Which is how I ended up living in Holland for the next 13 years, and got to take a second trip to Monaco.
This time the circumstances were much more, uh, respectable. It was 1998 and I was supplying articles and managing correspondents for a New York-based journal that covered the worldwide gaming industry worldwide. It was a great freelance gig, visiting casinos all over Europe - and being wined and dined by casino managers.
But apparently things had changed for the better at the casino, and I was invited to come down to Monte-Carlo, stay a few days, get to know the place, bring my wife. I said okay.
Before I go any further, is there anybody reading this who doesn’t know the basics about Monaco? Here they are in brief: Playground of the rich and powerful for well over 100 years. The prototype for the modern casino resort. Italian playboys. American movie stars in the 1950s. Grace Kelly transformed into Princess Grace. The Jet Set. Oil sheiks. Russians. And down through the years, residents and repeat visitors who somehow manage to be both discreet and ostentatious at the same time.
We flew into the Nice airport, about 15 miles from Monaco. From there we could have taken the helicopter shuttle - most travel writers seem to opt for this dramatic entrance, which they all agree takes about 7 minutes. They all love the food, too. Instead we grabbed a cab, and 25 minutes later we were winding our way down Monaco’s hilly streets. Either method was a step up from the way I’d first entered the principality, which was by thumb.
Monaco is so small you have to wonder how it has managed to exist for 700 years. Less than two square miles in area, almost all of it is rocky hillside sprouting fairly modern high-rise apartments and offices. In most places the country is little more than a quarter of a mile wide, crammed in between the Mediterranean and the indistinguishable and open border with France. There is no income tax, which maybe helps explain the mystery of that 700-year existence.
Not that the room was bad by any standard. In fact, at the time, the Societe des Bains de Mer - the company formed in 1863 to operate the casino and which today operates all four casinos in Monaco plus hotels, restaurants, a luxury spa and more - had tentative plans to buy the Loews property. Eventually it went to a different buyer, who refurbished the rooms in 1998-’99 and renamed it the Monte-Carlo Grand Hotel.
Awaiting us in the room was a nice basket of fresh fruit, a box of deluxe chocolates, and some gifts, including a leather-bound organizer, all from the casino manager. We were still unpacking when a knock at the door signaled a hotel employee bearing a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon. We were starting to get a taste of Monte-Carlo.
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The Monte-Carlo assignment came up and, believe it or not, at first I tried to talk the editor out of it. I had tried to do an article on Monte-Carlo two years earlier and had been stonewalled by the casino management. From outside sources I’d learned that all was not well with the world’s original casino resort. Not having heard anything to change this impression, I anticipated the same lack of cooperation.
It was the heart of the low season, the middle of January. Still, the temperature was mild, mid-50s during the day, somewhat cooler at night. The Christmas and New Year’s crowd had just left, and things wouldn’t be picking up until the end of the month, when the new season of special events kicked off. I had hoped this would guarantee us one of the 250 rooms in the classic, 1864-built Hotel de Paris, situated on the Place du Casino adjacent the main casino. Instead, we were given a room at the (then) Loews Monte-Carlo, a modern, 629-room hotel built right over the sea and just below/behind the Monte-Carlo casino.