History of the casino

Towards the end of the 1830s, Francois and Louis Blanc disparagingly called Homburg vor der Höhe “a small, filthy one-horse town”. However, the small royal seat of the landgraves of Hessen-Homburg offered two advantages: its picturesque location at the foot of the Taunus hills as well as two mineral springs. Far-sighted and business-minded as they were, the Blanc brothers knew they would be successful if they managed to consistently link the Spa and gaming in Homburg. The heavily indebted Landgrave Phillipp cherished the same hope, and soon the two parties came to an agreement.

On 23 May 1841, the Roulette ball rolled in Homburg for the first time. On the same day, the foundation stone for the “Kurhaus” (Spa rooms) was layed; the Blanc brothers had comitted themselves to building this place. After a construction period of only two years, the casino moved from the “Brunnensälchen” (the small well hall, to which the casino moved back more than 60 years ago) into the new, magnificent building. From the very beginning, a “world novelty” gave the Bad Homburg Casino a magnetic power of attraction: the Blanc brothers were the first to abolish the Double Zero that had so far been common in Roulette. This considerably increased the chances of winning for the guests.

At the same time, they turned Homburg into a Spa resort with international flair over the following years. The Blancs invested a lot of money in the promotion of the Spa facilities, gave the town its street lighting, initiated the laying of water pipes, and connected Homburg to the rest of the world by building a railway connection to Frankfurt.

Homburg and the Blanc brothers brought each other the prosperity and wealth they had hoped for. Year after year, the little Spa town at the foot of the Taunus hills prospered and turned into one of Europe’s leading gambling Spa towns. From Paris to Petersburg, from London to Madrid, the leading society papers reported on the luxurious amenities and the legendary wins you were able to make at the Homburg Casino. And they all came. Aristocrats and revolutionaries, millionaires and poets immortalised themselves in the casino’s guestbook.

31 December 1872 was a black day in Homburg’s history. The casino closed its doors for many decades. When the landgrave’s family had died out, the small principality became Prussian, and in Prussia gambling was prohibited. Nonetheless, the small principality did not fall back into mediocrity. On the contrary: by further expanding the healthcare sector, Homburg developed into a world-class health Spa in which Europe’s entire aristocracy sought recovery. The Prussian imperial family chose the landgrave’s castle as their permanent summer residence.

But also Francois Blanc – his brother Louis had died in 1850 – was well cared for. As early as 1863, he had purchased the license to run a casino in Monaco. Together with his wife Marie, he repeated the Homburg success on the Monegasque rock, and established the Monte Carlo Casino as one of the most famous casinos worldwide. This is why the Bad Homburg Casino, after its re-opening in 1949, is quite rightly referred to as the “mother of Monte Carlo”.

The identical twins Francois and Louis Blanc were born on 12 December 1806 as sons of a tax collector. They were smart, far-sighted, business-minded, and animated by the desire to become rich. Endowed by their mother Marie-Therese with a good upbringing and education as well as a starting capital of 500 Francs each, they sought their luck in various jobs in the financial world at first. In Bordeaux, the Blanc brothers set up a small banking business in 1830, and soon learned how to outperform their competitors. However, a court finally brought to an end their “imaginative” methods of being informed on the Paris stock exchange earlier than their colleagues in the provinces. From Paris, the Blanc brothers moved to Luxemburg,
where they met Landgrave Ludwig of Hessen-Homburg. When Landgrave Ludwig’s brother Phillipp took over the regency, he called Francois and Louis Blanc to Homburg and granted them the license “to exercise gambling”.