Try breaking THIS bank…

…I couldn’t!

This is a picture of the Monte Carlo Casino. The casino is designed in the Neo-Baroque-inspired style, popular during the Beaux-Arts period in France, by the French architect Charles Garnier. Construction of the casino was completed in 1863.

I visited this casino back in 1976 with my family when we lived in Europe. My siblings and I were extremely disappointed to find out that children (us) were not allowed inside. From the steps I noticed that there was one slot machine that we could see from outside, so I asked my dad to go and play that one…and damned if he didn’t hit the jackpot on about the third coin! Lights were spinning..bells and whistles blaring..attendants even brought over a bucket to collect all the coins that were spewing from the mouth of the machine! Unfortunately, the layout of the casino has changed since 1976. The slots are no longer viewable from the outside, or surely history would have repeated itself when I visited this year with my family!

This shot is composed of three handheld bracketed images at 2-stop intervals. I processed HDR with Photomatix, and touched up with Aperture.