Talk:Men who broke the bank at Monte Carlo

Jaggers

A supposed relative of one Joseph Jagger has written a book on the man, and persons closely associated have added content to this article in support. 5.64.90.229 (talk) 16:51, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

If this is written about by reliable independent sources we can include it. If not, then not, per WP:UNDUE. Guy (Help!) 09:06, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

The author of the new book is Jagger's great-great niece, which may explain her interest, but doesn't cast doubt on her source material. The section is/was suitably cautious. And I've no connection with either author or publisher; I merely flipped idly through its pages at Waterstones.--Davidcpearce (talk) 09:41, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

No, it was not. The statement that the book exists was sourced to the sales page of the book, and there were no reliable independent sources to corroborate any of the rest of it, nor to confirm its significance. We remove content on this basis all the time. Guy (Help!) 17:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Joseph Jagger (or Jaggers)

In his 1901 book, Monte Carlo Anecdotes and Systems of Play, the Hon. Victor Bethell writes about a man named Jaggers, ′a Yorkshireman, and a mechanic by trade′, who went to the casino in the 1870s. Jaggers' engineering experience told him that no roulette wheel could be mechanically perfect, and that any flaw in the wheel might result in a bias toward certain numbers. Assisted by a team of six clerks, he is said to have identified a wheel which displayed such a bias and backed those numbers which came up more often than others. Bethell claims that Jaggers won £120,000 [equivalent to about £12 million today]. However, searches of a number of on-line newspaper archives (including The Times Digital Archive and the British Newspaper Archives) reveal no references to Jagger at the time of his supposed wins. Yet, after Bethell's book appeared in 1901, the story was often repeated in newspapers as well as in other books. Since contemporary reports appear to be lacking, it may be best to assume that Bethell created this story for his book. Jagger's great-great niece, historian Anne Fletcher, has written a biography of Joseph Jagger, From the Mill to Monte Carlo, (released July, 2018). This work includes new evidence that Jagger did in fact break the bank.

References

This claim has one dubious source, Bethell. The book in the last para, purportedly by a relative, is supported only by a link to its sales page. Wikipedia requires sources that are (a) reliable, (b) independent and (c) secondary. The sources here meet at best one of these criteria. Guy (Help!) 09:15, 25 August 2018 (UTC)