Charity wins as gamblers lose at Torrelodones casino

Gloria Martín is a lucky woman when it comes to games of chance. She once won the lottery; another time she won an entire kitchen on a TV game show, and these days she wears a pendant around her neck (when she remembers to) with a button she can press if she needs emergency assistance. In this last case, however, her good fortune is owed to other people's bad luck.

Every year, the Torrelodones casino donates the tokens that clients lose and the prizes that winners forget to claim for use in social projects such as Red Cross assistance to elderly citizens. Amazing as it may sound, there are quite a number of absent-minded gamblers around. Last year, the casino donated nearly ¤34,000 worth of "orphaned tokens," as they are known in casino jargon.

For the Gran Casino Madrid de Torrelodones, it is not about solidarity, but about obligation. Spanish legislation mandates that every token without an owner be duly recorded and the money donated to social projects. Over the course of its 30-year history, the casino - one of Spain's busiest, with 550,000 visitors last year - it has handed local authorities in Torrelodones around 800,000 euros.

A couple of weeks ago, Torrelodones Mayor Carlos Galbeño accepted the latest check from casino director Jesús Marín. Although this year's check may seem large, Marín says on previous occasions the sum has been as much as 50,000 euros. Perhaps the reason lies in the economic crisis, which has not reduced attendance but did bring down the volume of gambling. That, and maybe the fact that players are increasingly more vigilant about their tokens, making sure none of them end up under the table, inside a waste basket or on top of a slot machine.

If Beatriz Lozano, a cleaner at the casino for the last 17 years, had kept all the tokens she has found during that time, she could have retired a long time ago. But she does not even think about it, even though orphaned tokens show up every day when she shines the staircase or vacuums the thick carpets. This is the first step in a chain of events that enables a casino token to become one of 106 pendants worn around the necks of Torrelodones' elderly residents, putting them in permanent touch with the Red Cross. Occasionally, it works as more than just an emergency service, giving lonely people someone to talk to - although Gloria, 84, does not really need that. She is never home for long, and workers who call her every day to see how she is doing have to try her several times before finding her in her house.

Gloria does not even recall when the system began, but she is very happy with it. "The other day I wasn't home all day, and they called me at 10pm to see how I was doing," she says, still sounding surprised. Thanks to the casino money, Gloria and another 56 people in town also get a subsidized home cleaning service once a week. Prices range from nothing to six euros a month depending on the beneficiary's income.

Everything to do with the casino is a question of luck. The law stipulates that a casino cannot be less than 29 kilometers from the capital, and as luck would have it, Torrelodones is exactly 29 kilometers from Madrid, along the A-6 highway. Besides the money from the tokens, the casino provides financial support for the local band, organizes painting competitions and has already paid the town over - 5 million since 2007 through the economic activity tax.

These days, the Torrelodones Housewives Association is busy planning its yearly trip to the casino, and Gloria cannot wait. Even if she were to lose a token, she would get it back through the assistance program. But she is sure that will not happen. "We girls never lose a single one; you can be sure of that," she smiles.