including the Earl of Derby and the Duke of Devonshire. The standard bet was £1,000, which would be £25,000 accounting for inflation in 2007 figures. Chemie games were quick and played every 30 seconds, with £50,000 changing hands per game. On his first such event Aspinall made a profit of £10,000, a sum roughly equivalent to £300,000 in 2017 money. In 1958, Aspinall was living at Howletts Zoo, in Kent; at one point his mother Mary (Lady Osborne) had forgotten to pay off corrupt police officers, so the police raided his game that night. Aspinall, John Burke and Lady Osborne were all charged with gaming offences but won the subsequent court case, the outcome of which is known as Aspinall's Law. The win created a vast increase in Chemie games, during which: The landowner, Edward Stanley, 18th Earl of Derby, lost over £20,000; and then returned on another night and lost £300,000. William Sterling, younger brother of the founder of the Special Air Service, Colonel Sir David Stirling, lost £173,500 on Aspinall's tables, writing out an IOU at the end of the night. In response to Aspinall's win in court, the British Government brought forward the Betting and Gaming Act 1960, which when enacted allowed commercial bingo halls to be set up, provided they were established as members-only clubs and made their profit from membership fees and charges, and not from a percentage of the money staked. Casinos were required to operate under the same rules, with a licence from the Gaming Board of Great Britain (now the Gambling Commission), and to be members-only. The passing of these laws brought Aspinall's Chemie-based 5% business model to a close, and he had to find a new business. Casinos In 1962, Aspinall founded the Clermont Club in London's Mayfair. The club was named after Lord Clermont, a gambler who had previously owned the building in Berkeley Square. The club's original members included five dukes, five marquesses, twenty earls and two cabinet ministers. Overheads were higher, and under the new laws, Aspinall was required to pay tax, only making a table charge which produced much smaller revenue for the house. In Douglas Thompson's book The Hustlers, and the later documentary on Channel 4, The Real Casino Royale, the club's former financial director John Burke and gangster Billy Hill's associate John McKew, claimed that Aspinall worked with Hill to employ criminals to cheat the