Casinò di Sanremo

It was inaugurated on January 12, 1905 at the time of Mayor Augusto Mombello with the name of Kiurzaal. Run by the Parisian architect Eugene Ferret for the first two years, it was a theater where parties, receptions, shows and concerts were organized. Within it gambling was practiced, as indeed happened in most tourist cities, but without any official authorization, but only with the placet of local administrations. The first croupiers operating inside the gambling house came from Ostend (Belgium), where there was a renowned school.

In 1927 he was appointed podestà of the city of Sanremo the engineer Pietro Agosti who, with a long work of weaving, also requiring the direct intervention of Benito Mussolini obtained the Royal Decree of December 22, 1927 that officially sanctioned the birth of the Casinò di Sanremo in which you can legally practice gambling. The Casinò di Sanremo officially opened its doors on 21 January 1928 with an inaugural gala evening. The concession in the meantime was officially entrusted to the Società Anonima Casinò Municipale di Sanremo, directed by Luigi De Santis.

Immediately a meeting was called that decided to expand the premises by creating two new wings, the interior design of the '500-style interior and the two side domes visible on the facade. Numerous collateral activities took place within it, such as the International Chess Tournament of San Remo held in 1930.

From 1913 the Casino also had its tramway connection: the bus stop of the Ospedaletti-Sanremo-Taggia tramway located in front of the building was equipped with a doubling track that sometimes served as an end in the evening for special dedicated services.

On April 14, 1934, the company officially changed its name to Società Anonima Iniziative Turistiche (SAIT). In October of the same year, due to the death of Cavalier De Santis, the actions passed to his wife Maria Strambini who in the early months of 1935 gave her to the cavalier Angelo Belloni who took over the management.

In June 1940 it was closed by decree of the Ministry of the Interior because of the war. He reopened after the conflict. After the years of conflict, the casino officially reopened on the evening of December 31, 1945. In the spring of 1948 the concession company CIRT (Italian Tourism Reconstruction Company) was ousted, so the Ministry of the Interior on February 25, 1948 commissioned the casino with the prefect Omodeo Salé who will be able to fix the situation that had previously escaped from his hand. Along with the normal management of the casino many social evenings that recall back to Sanremo customers of the first post-war period. At the end of 1949, the tenderer saw the new dealer of the gambling house the commendator Pier Busseti.

On January 29, 1951, the first edition of the Sanremo Festival presented by Nunzio Filogamo took place in the Salone delle feste. The casino was the headquarters of the Italian Song Festival uninterruptedly from 1951 to 1976 when in 1977 it moved to the Ariston Theater.

On 19 February 1953, following the death of Commendator Pier Busseti, the casino was granted to the ATA company of the Milanese industrialist, as well as Inter president, Carlo Masseroni. In January 1959 the ATA summit was taken by the lawyer Luigi Bertolini, owner of the Reale hotel. During the management Bertolini broke out a scandal of bribes that overwhelmed the city administration, including the mayor Viale. On 16 February 1969 the casino was a police station. In the summer of 1972 a second scandal broke out about the disappearance of about two billion lire a year, so, practically failed the public management of the casino between various scandals, in 1981 it was given back to private for a short time.Il December 1, 2001 Casinò Spa was established and still manages the gambling house with a board of directors.