Casino de la vallee

The beginning of the tourist fortunes of the Valdostan town has very ancient origins and can be dated precisely: 20 July 1770. On that day the abbot Jean-Baptiste Perret, passionate about chemistry and mineralogy, discovered a source of water with therapeutic virtues. The analyzes confirmed the prelate's expectations and the "Fons Salutis" became a call for vacationers.
During the summers from 1827 to 1829 Queen Maria Teresa, wife of Vittorio Emanuele I of Sardinia, and her three daughters, the princesses Maria Anna, Maria Cristina and Beatrice Maria followed the spa treatment staying at the Challant castle of nearby Châtillon. Since then all the haute société of northern Italy began to frequent Saint-Vincent to "pass the waters". In 1850 the parish house was home to Silvio Pellico, who came to health after his imprisonment in the Spielberg fortress. In 1854 it was the turn of another queen, Maria Teresa, widow of Carlo Alberto, who tried in vain to get back into health. Shortly thereafter, the boom in the spas and the "Riviera delle Alpi" broke out. In 1872, there were already three hotels: the Scudo di Francia, the Hôtel des Quatre-Saisons and the Hôtel du Lion d'Or, the latter still today in activity. There was also a Casino (no accent), but it was just a gathering place where you could enjoy good music and dance; gambling still did not speak.


In 1898 Queen Margherita di Savoia also stayed in Saint-Vincent appreciating the therapeutic virtues of the "Fons Salutis" and soon the spa town of Aosta was pompously renamed "the Italian Karlsbad". In 1921 the mayor Elia Page asked the Under Prefect of Aosta permission to open a roulette table for the summer months. The Under Prefect consented by reminding him of the responsibilities connected with the maintenance of public order in the Municipality. That same summer, in the Kursaal hall, money began to play and in September the administration managed to pay the huge debts incurred for work on the mountain channel entirely. At the end of the Second World War the National Liberation Committee appointed Elia Page as mayor of Saint-Vincent again, which a few months later, on November 6, 1945, wrote to the Minister of the Interior, probably ignoring that the dicastery was interim right from the Head of the Government Ferruccio Parri, to ask for "the concession for the exercise of all exclusive games of chance, for the territory of Valle d'Aosta, for a period of fifteen years" and explaining that "the majority of problems that currently beset the City of Saint-Vincent and the others of the Valle d'Aosta to give themselves adequate and worthy equipment would certainly be resolved with revenue revenues ... ", but concluding with a" as soon as the negotiations with the Company chosen for the greater guarantees and seriousness offered, they will have come to a concrete form, it will be the undersigned's responsibility to give due notice to this Honorable Ministry "that said a lot about the resolution of the mayor in continuing on this path. At the request of the first citizen of Saint-Vincent there was never an official answer, perhaps because the Parri government fell on the 23rd of the same month and on December 10th the government headed by Alcide De Gasperi replaced it with other issues to think about. .. however, in an informal form influential politicians made known the willingness of the Government to accept the request. With these assumptions the mayor took up pen and paper and addressed, in French, a similar request to the President of the Council of Valle d'Aosta, the historian Federico Chabod, to whom he wrote "forcing a bit 'the hand" that "the Gouvernement de Rome fit savoir, officiellement, que la précaire situation économique de la Vallée d'Aoste, son importance touristique et sa particulière situation géographique directement en contact avec deux pays étrangers et amis, appuyaient indiscutablement la demande "and the request became" pour la période minime d 'une vingtaine d'années ". Despite the Italian law expressly forbids gambling and waiting for the Special Statute of 1948 to set precise limits on the powers and powers of the Region, President Chabod issued the opening decree of the Casino de la Vallée on 3 April 1946 . In the provision, which authorized the establishment of the gambling house "for the duration of twenty years", art. 12 of the decree law luogotenenziale n. 545 of 7/9/1945 with which the Autonomy was granted to the Valle d'Aosta. The article in question attributed to the region administrative competences for "initiatives on tourism, hotel supervision, landscape protection and supervision on the preservation of antiquities and artistic works"; putting a casino in the middle was definitely a bet, but also a master move.

On May 13, 1946, the Regional Council approved the opening conditions and on 17 May established the allocation of profits between the concession holder and the Region. The definition of the agreements and the bureaucratic delays procrastinato the opening, but to the precise 21 of 29 March 1947 the head table Robert Semeghini gave the fateful announcement "messieurs, faites vos jeux"; the three clients, a textile industrialist from Biella, a lawyer from Casalese and a merchant from Turin (the proverbial discretion of the croupiers was probably born together with the Casino and the names were not handed down) announced their episodes. 100 lire white and 200 red chips to the green carpet. The employee Antonio Rolleri took the ivory ball, gave the roulette cylinder a clockwise thrust and started the ball in the opposite direction; after a few laps the messenger of fate went down to the bottom of the basin, overcame the diamond barriers, bounced and hopped on the boxes to stop on the one marked by the number nine. "Neuf, rouge, impair et manque": the gambling house officially started bringing wellbeing to the Valle d'Aosta and Saint-Vincent.