Sad news from the U.K. I got a call from a friend in London who told me that John Aspinall, the greatest British gambler of all time, died today of jaw cancer. It was not unexpected, but it is still a very sad day.
Aspers was a friend and something of a hero to me. He failed to graduate Oxford because he missed exams to pursue a hot tip on the races. In his 20s he was an off-course bookie and ran poker games at the Ritz and floating chemin de fer games for high society in flats around Mayfair, Belgravia and Paddington. These parties led to the legalization of casino gambling in his first gambling club, The Clermont Club, is still the loveliest, most elegant casino in the world. He sold that club in the 1970s and later opened Aspinall's in Hans Place and later transferred that license to larger premises at Aspinall's Curzon in Curzon Street, formerly the Curzon House Club.
Aspers had a great love of wildife and owned the two largest private zoos in Europe, Howletts and Port Lympe.
I last saw him in February at Howletts and he was writing his autobiography. He wrote in longhand. I hope he had time to finish it.
Anyway, he was a fabled figure on the gambling scene in London and a true Rennaisance man. I will miss him.

Russ