Germany offers upscale gambling options off base

Germany offers upscale gambling options off base
By Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, January 30, 2008

STUTTGART, Germany — The room is surprisingly quiet. The people inside are well-dressed. It’s like being at church, or at a board of directors’ meeting.

There is no music, only the murmur of conversation and the clacking sound of little metal balls bouncing into spinning roulette wheels.

“Funf und zwanzig,” says the dealer gently to those gathered around his table. The little metal ball has dropped into number “25.”

Spielbank Stuttgart is one of several dozen casinos in Germany, owned and operated by the German government. It has a dozen or so roulette tables, some for standing and others for sitting. There are blackjack tables, too, and a room for baccarat.

Gambling and sports-betting are legal in Germany. Spielbanks, or gambling casinos, are one of the choices Americans have to get their gambling fix off post if Congress outlaws gaming machines on U.S. military installations, as a current bill proposes.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52027