Charles Wells (gambler)

[2][3] His father was Charles Jeremiah Wells (1799-1879), poet and lawyer, to whom John Keats once addressed a sonnet (To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses)[4] His mother was Emily Jane Hill, the daughter of a Hertfordshire school teacher.

If a gambler won very large amounts, and this reserve was insufficient to pay the winnings, play at that table was suspended while extra funds were brought from the casino's vaults.

A ceremony was devised by François Blanc, the former owner of the casino: a black cloth was laid over the table in question, and the successful player was said to have broken the bank.

Some newspapers dismissed his wins as a publicity stunt,[12] but Wells claimed to have used an "infallible system" he had perfected,[13] and his past record as a fraudster caused many observers to believe that he had somehow found a way to cheat the casino (another possibility being that he was simply exceptionally lucky on these particular visits).

[16] In late 1892, he was arrested at Le Havre aboard his yacht, the Palais Royal, and extradited to Britain to be charged for crimes associated with his patent scheme.

He was released after six years due to good behaviour, though on one occasion he received two-days solitary confinement for giving a ten-ounce loaf of bread to another prisoner.

Shortly before his release he played 'The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo' and 'Home Sweet Home' on the organ of Portland's Roman Catholic Chapel.

The scam was remarkable for its scale, both in terms of the number of investors who lost money and the amount of their total losses, and the Sûreté accordingly mounted a determined operation to find who "Lucien Rivier" was, and bring him to justice.

[22] Wells’ exploits inspired Fred Gilbert to write a popular song, "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo".