Bad Homburg casino
The Bad Homburg casino is located in the spa gardens of the city of the same name , near the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad . For promotional purposes, she describes herself as the mother of Monte Carlo.
history
After the Ludwigsquelle, the first mineral spring in Bad Homburg, was discovered in the 1820s, the desire soon arose to raise Bad Homburg to the rank of a spa town. In 1830 the plan was made to found a stock corporation to build a spa park and spa house. Part of the considerations was the establishment of a casino . These plans were taken up again when Landgrave Ludwig von Hessen-Homburg met the twin brothers François and Louis Blanc in Luxembourg in 1838 , who ran a casino there. On July 19, 1840, a contract was signed between the Landgrave and the Blanc brothers, which guaranteed the Blancs a 30-year concession to operate a casino in Bad Homburg. In return, an increasing rent was agreed, which should eventually reach 10,000 guilders per year. In addition, the Blanc brothers had to build the Kurhaus for at least 100,000 guilders and transfer it to the landgrave.
The casino was opened on May 23, 1841 in the then supra-regionally insignificant city, whose rise to an important international spa town is directly due to the commitment of the brothers, who financed the street lighting and a railway connection to Frankfurt from the casino income in addition to the spa house .
The casino became an extraordinary economic success for the city of Bad Homburg, the Landgraves and the Blanc brothers. Bad Homburg became an international spa town that attracted the nobility of money and nobility. The landgrave kept making new demands and was able to alleviate his chronic financial problems. The Blanc brothers made a great fortune through the success of the casino. Both of them did without the double zero that was common at the time in roulette . The resulting improved chances of the players attracted players across Europe and contributed to gushing profits. In his novel The Gambler , Fyodor Dostoyevsky immortalized the atmosphere of gaming at the time. Since Dostoevsky first played in Wiesbaden , then in Baden-Baden , and from October 1863 in Bad Homburg, it is a matter of dispute which of the casinos is described in the novel. In the story, Homburg is explicitly mentioned as such, while “Roulettenburg” is described as a non-identical place.
The game operation took place in the gaming room of the Kurhaus . Since the expansion in 1850, this game room has been in the left wing of the palace-like Kurhaus. The language was predominantly French , most of the staff came from the then French-speaking Friedrichsdorf . Due to the residence ban, the citizens of the Landgraviate were not allowed to play in the casino. The residence ban for the Hessian casinos was not lifted until March 1, 1986.
In 1847 the Blanc brothers founded the Société anonyme des fermes réunies du Kurhaus et des Sources minérales à Hombourg-ès-monts (United stock corporation for the leasing of the Kurhaus and the mineral springs in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe), which became the casino's concessionaire until the end of 1872.
Casino ban
The operation of casinos has often been judged to be immoral. After the March Revolution , this assessment became part of the political debate. On January 8, 1849, the Frankfurt National Assembly passed a law that was promulgated twelve days later and provided for the repeal of all German casinos on May 1, 1849. The government of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Homburg demanded compensation for the casino leaseholder and the state treasury, but could not enforce this demand. On March 9, 1849, Hessen-Homburg formally protested against the law. The provisional central authority then sent Reichskommissar Theodor Friedrich Knyn with 700 execution troops to Homburg on May 7th to carry out the Reich execution . The operators were then forced to close the casino. The troops then withdrew on May 9th. A Cercle des étrangers was founded and continued to play "privately". A reception was set up, where everyone who came received a free ticket, which was also valid for the reading room. The closure was officially lifted by ministerial decree on March 17th, 1851, and from August 28th it was again possible to play "publicly".
In October 1866 , Prussia annexed large areas in northern Germany, including the cities of Wiesbaden, Ems and Homburg with their casinos. This led to another debate about a closure. On February 26, 1868, the Prussian House of Representatives passed a ban on casinos with limited continued operation, but an immediate ban on gaming on Sundays and public holidays. On February 28, the ban was also adopted in the manor house , and it came into force on March 5, after it was signed by the King, Bismarck and all ministers. After the establishment of the German Empire , the ban was extended to the entire territory of the Reich, and all casinos, including Baden-Baden , had to close by December 31, 1872 at the latest. In order to avoid any turmoil on the last days of the match, François Blanc announced that there would be no more opening on December 30th and 31st (Monday and Tuesday), but normal play continued until the last minute at 11 p.m. on December 31, 1872 .
From then on, François Blanc devoted himself exclusively to the now world-famous Monte Carlo casino , which he took over in 1863 and led it to even greater success than Homburg. That is why the Bad Homburg casino has been called the mother of Monte Carlo since it reopened on April 7, 1949 . The city of Bad Homburg was hit harder. In 1873 the number of spa guests collapsed by half, but the city was still able to get along well for a while as a mere spa town, since the limited continued operation of the casino from 1868 to 1872 was linked to the payment of two fifths of the net profit into a "spa fund" was.
New opening
It was not until April 7, 1949 that the casino in the Bad Homburg spa gardens was reopened. Hermann Heidtmann was the concessionaire. From 1976 the casino Bad Homburg Wicker & Co. KG was the concessionaire and operator of the casino. 360,000 visitors in 2000 led to gross gaming revenues of DM 73 million. The state of Hesse and the city of Bad Homburg receive 89 percent of the casino's income as a license fee in accordance with Section 7 ff. Of the Hessian Casino Act. On January 1, 2013, the management took over the François-Blanc-Spielbank GmbH Bad Homburg, a subsidiary of the 100 percent municipal Kur- und Kongress GmbH.
Web links
literature
- Barbara Dölemeyer: The fate of the casino - mother of Monte Carlo . In: Ingrid Berg: Heimat Hochtaunus . Kramer, Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 3-7829-0375-7 , pages 457-462.
- Angelika Baeumerth: Bad Homburg and its "spa houses" in: Ingrid Berg: Heimat Hochtaunus . Kramer, Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 3-7829-0375-7 , pages 392-396.
- Egon Caesar Conte Corti : The Magician of Homburg and Monte Carlo (Verlag Das Goldene Vlies GmbH & Co, Frankfurt / M .; also published as Ullstein Book No. 46, 1955)
- Ulrich Eisenbach: The Blanc Brothers and Roulette, in: IHK internal 05/08, pages 8-10
- Pall, Etienne: Revelations from Bad Homburg and secrets of the goings-on there; Weimar 1856, 78 p., Fr: Les echos de Hombourg - scenes de jeu, Paris 1856 (Taride)
Individual evidence
- ^ Hesse-Homburg . In: Heinrich August Pierer , Julius Löbe (Hrsg.): Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past . 4th edition. tape 8 . Altenburg 1859, p. 322-323 ( zeno.org ).
- ↑ SpielbkG HE
- ↑ New year begins with a fresh start in the casino; FAZ.net December 31, 2012
Coordinates: 50 ° 13 ′ 41 ″ N , 8 ° 37 ′ 37 ″ E