Monte Carlo – along with Monaco's other communes, La Condamine and Monaco-Ville, site of the Palace – is a territorial microcosm unique in its raison d'être. Although over 100,000 more visitors tread yearly through Monaco's Oceanographic Museum than its Casino, the postage-stamp principality would be little more than just another sunny promontory on the Côte d'Azur if it weren't for the international drawing power of its monolithic Casino's green-baized gambling tables. His Most Serene Highness, Prince Rainier, governs his Graustark-by-the-Sea with a benign iron hand, but it is still Dame Fortune who rules the waking hours of most of its non-Monegasque inhabitants and visitors (a save-the-people-from-themselves royal edict forbids Monacan citizens to gamble in the Casino).
Monaco is a 368-acre magnet ingeniously designed to attract money. It offers a stunning yacht basin made more so by the almost constant presence of Greek shipping czar Aristotle Onassis' ultraluxurious floating palace, two of the world's premiere auto events (The Monte Carlo Rallye, held during the end of January, finishes in Monaco after car-killing journeys from all corners of Europe; the Monaco Grand Prix is a glamor-filled high-speed chase through Monte Carlo's streets, in May, by the world's top racing drivers) and, of course, the Casino.
"In the gambling salons," Playboy's artist-observer LeRoy Neiman notes, "an aura of interpersonal conflict crackles over the cards of the chemin de fer and baccarat tables; by contrast, an air of impending profit hovers over the roulette wheels and the trente et quarante tables, while a more boisterous American-influenced atmosphere pervades the crap table. The more affluent try their luck in the Salons Privés where one of the baccarat tables operates with a 500-franc ($100) minimum wager – stakes that preclude the presence of the faint of heart or feeble of bankroll."
