Chancing Sheik to Sheik

Oil-rich Arabs may be buying banks in New York and London, but an attempt to break the bank at Monte Carlo last week was somewhat less successful. When three Saudi Arabian princes, including Minister of the Interior Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz, dropped more than $6 million on the roulette wheel at the Monte Carlo Casino, even jaded Monegasques were aghast.

The Saudi sheiks arrived at the elegant Hotel de Paris late last month with one thing in mind. "We have come to gamble," they told the casino management. "But on certain conditions. We're going to tell you when to close." The casino, which normally shuts down around 2 in the morning, remained open as long as the Scotch-sipping Saudis wished, sometimes until 9 the next morning.

Said one exhausted croupier when it was all over: "Praise Allah, they didn't stay for a thousand and one nights."

The Saudis' gambling technique was to constantly up their stake. After doubling the normal ceiling on $400 chips, they then asked for permission to quadruple it. That meant that with 36-to-l odds, a $1,600 chip on a winning number was worth about $57,000. When the Saudis began grouping their bets on a single number--meaning they stood to win $57,000 several tunes over if the number came up--the casino was obliged to ask them to stop.

No Smiles. Casino officials were petrified that they would have a lucky streak, win a fortune, and never come back. Huge crowds gathered around the roulette tables. "Girls on the make swarmed around them like bees," said one spectator. "The princes invited two young women to dine with them. After dinner, the girls to their surprise were not invited to visit the princes' suites, but each was given a $400 chip as a token of appreciation for her company."

The sheiks were equally generous with the croupiers.

Once, when a casino employee emptied an ashtray, the Saudi handed him a $400 chip. Still, for all their largesse, the Arabs did not seem to be enjoying it that much.

Said a croupier: "They never cracked a smile."

With good reason obviously. Although the princes at one point were $2 million ahead, they went on to prove that old axiom once formulated by Casino Founder Camille Blanc: "Money won by gamblers is just money loaned." The sheiks kept on gambling and not only blew it all but racked up losses of more than $6 million.

The Societe des Bains de Mer, which owns both the casino and the Hotel de Paris, decided not to charge the sheiks for their rooms. "It was the least we could do," said an official. But Prince Louis de Polignac, chairman of the board of the S.B.M., was less sanguine about all the publicity. "Gamblers are like Swiss bankers," he said. "They love discretion. When a gambler gets unwanted publicity, he goes somewhere else."

That, as it happens, is just what the Saudis did. After paying off their debts, they moved to their winter quarters at Geneva across the border from a gambling casino at Divonne-les-Bains in France. Monegasques were confident, however, that they would be back. One real estate agent reported that the Saudis had made inquiries about acquiring a pied a terre--"a large villa or a small skyscraper"--in the tiny principality.

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