Journal
The journal
Five long reads on the people and places behind Germany’s casino towns. Every date and name comes from a named source, and where sources disagree we say so.
People · Wiesbaden
Dostoevsky in Wiesbaden: the man who lost his fare home
Dostoevsky visited Wiesbaden between 1862 and 1871 and lost his travel money there in 1865. What the city encyclopaedia and his letters say, and what is legend.
ReadPeople · Bad Homburg
The Blanc brothers: from Bad Homburg to Monte Carlo
How François and Louis Blanc built the Bad Homburg casino in 1841, how François reached Monaco, and why the "invented the single-zero wheel" story is disputed.
ReadPeople · Baden-Baden
Bénazet and the making of Baden-Baden
How casino money paid for Baden-Baden’s Kurhaus (1821–24), the Iffezheim races (1858) and the theatre (1862) under the Bénazet lessees, and what stays unverified.
ReadExplainer · Law and history
Why German casinos sit in spa towns
From the 1837 French ban to the 1873 imperial prohibition, the 1949–50 reopenings and a 1970 constitutional ruling: why German casinos sit in spa and resort towns.
ReadPlace · Berlin
Potsdamer Platz and the Spielbank Berlin
From the traffic tower of 1924 to the Wall, reunification and the 1998 move of Spielbank Berlin to Marlene-Dietrich-Platz, with what we could not confirm.
ReadHow we write these
Each article has a source list and a box headed “What we could not confirm”. We prefer the city archive, the casino’s own history page or the statute to a guidebook, and we mark quotations that circulate without a source as “often attributed”. The articles are history, not advice: for the practical side of a visit, start with First visit or the FAQ.