Pierre Dugal

If you want successfully, you should cheat by yourself or with a reliable team. Do you remember an old saying: two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead? Apparently, Dugal never heard of this saying. It is both sad and funny. His life story is full of interesting exploits and dangerous outcomes.

He lived in times when Monte Carlo was the world's capital of gambling. Those were the times, when simple people worked in the field and nobles lived in huge mansions and wore very pretentious outfits. He was smart or not really smart but quick-witted, which is counted as smart in this case.

Early Times of French Gaming Police

The early 19th century. The casinos realized that they needed some kind of protection and law enforcement agency that would fight the cheaters. And the cheaters were not just random visitors or people who we would recognize as the cheaters. Just like in the old movies. No, very often the cheaters were the nobles. Yeah, imagine that!!

Dugal was not only a gambler, he had another profession. He was a carpenter. And from time to time he would stay in the casino and do his "magic tricks." He would go to the restroom and hide there just before the closing. Then he would get out from his hiding place on a toilet stall and go "fix" the roulette table.

There were no devices to figure out if the roulette wheel was tampered or biased, if the change was slight. And after applying his woodcraft skills, he would send somebody from the family to play. He tampered the wheels in such a way that the ball would fall on certain numbers. He did not risk to be caught in roulette slide or mix-up. He was quite inventive.

Oops! I Did It Again

But he loved women…. a lot. He had several wives and many mistresses. Once his wife burst and went to the Police and told everything about her unfaithful husband. And he got busted in the casino while doing his side "job."

He was imprisoned, served his sentence, divorced. Once he was released, he continued cheating. The second wife learnt the story and did exactly the same thing as the first one. It happened to him three times. The story ended because the main hero died in the cell of the prison. Sad story but funny at the same time. You should not have unreliable collaterals.