Before the 1960s, if you’d fancied commanding the gaming table in any British casino for a living you could forget about it – there were no British casinos, or at least no kosher ones. When the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act finally made gambling legal, there were so few homegrown croupiers that the explosion of new casinos had to import talent from Belgium, Italy and, especially, France.

Eager young British wannabes had to bang on the doors of clubs like Crockfords and practically beg for a chance to learn how to cut it with their Continental cousins. Catching up was a long, slow process.