Life is a game. It deserves a gamesome timepiece. Casino is on par with the lifestyle offered by the Casino de Monte-Carlo or the high-stakes room at the MGM Grand. This clean, lean and sleek roulette watch is dressed in rose gold and a black onyx dial, an unadulterated expression of Jacob & Co.‘s cheerful nature and ingenuity. Playing with watchmaking classics, and doing away with conventions and propriety, Casino sets a unique tone in today’s horology.
Based in the most thorough technical paradigm, Casino features Jacob & Co.‘s first-ever flying tourbillon located case-back-side, with high-end finishings and sophisticated material details. Leaving its entire expression space to a fully functional, free-spinning roulette, complete with 37 pockets and a white ball, Casino is designed for chance, hopes for luck and brings supreme exhilaration.
In 2019, Jacob & Co. launched one of the most successful versions of the Astronomia. Astronomia Casino has been manufactured in surprisingly high quantities given how specific and costly it actually is. As an integral part of the Astronomia collection, it offers a 10-minute rotating platform, a triple-axis tourbillon, a magnesium Earth globe and a spinning 288-facet, Jacob-cut diamond. Jacob & Co. has managed the design and technical feat of adding a fully working roulette to this already highly functional ensemble. The module which operates that roulette, its signature complication, has been plugged inside Jacob & Co.’s new complication timepiece Casino, thus giving it a unique personality. Casino is an expression of playfulness, the art of taking chances and incidentally, the love of gambling.
Pure lines
The Casino case takes its inspiration from the original Roulette timepiece by Jacob & Co., the Astronomia Casino. Yet its dimensions, shape, movement and construction are entirely new and dedicated to this specific piece. The 44-mm case body is crafted out of 18K rose gold and thoroughly polished. The caseband is curved, the bezel steep and the sapphire crystal generously domed, all of which create a single harmonious line. It’s fitted with four full and wide lugs, whose shape initiates the black alligator strap curve. These angles and this elaborate construction aim at slimming down the Casino profile and make for a more comfortable and ergonomic fit with wrists of all sizes.
One of the attributes Casino shares with its forbearer the absence of a crown. Time-setting and winding are both operated with bows placed against the caseback. Seen from above, Casino is, therefore as smooth as possible given the presence of an essential appendage: the Roulette pusher at 8 o’clock. The pusher itself is square and large so as to offer the best finger contact possible. To blend it with the Casino’s overall case profile, it’s surrounded by a long, crescent-shaped crown guard.
Pure luck
This pusher is the heart of the Casino as it operates its signature function, elevated to the rank of an actual watchmaking complication. Casino is a genuine Roulette game. Once laid out flat on a table, it operates as a fully random game of chance. The pusher propels the wheel head, complete with 37 pockets, 1 green, 18 red and 18 black. The mechanical construction of this movement part rests on a set of ceramic ball bearings of extremely high quality. The wheel head spins with high speed and very little friction.
Meanwhile, a white ceramic ball bounces inside Casino. It flies throughout the lower part of the dial and flange, which is fitted with eight diamond-shaped deflectors. Randomization is at its best and makes the Casino a true portable game, not just a testament to the wearer’s love for Roulette, taking chances or any other symbol they may see in Casino.
Pure luxury
The gambling establishments Jacob & Co. used as an inspiration for Casino are the likes of the high-stakes room at the Bellagio and the plush carpeted floors of the Monte-Carlo Casino. The finishings and details of this timepiece set the same tone. The hours and minutes dial is made of a single slab of black onyx, mirror-polished and fitted with applied, 5N gold indices. Their kite shape is a nod to the kite-cut sapphires, used in several Jacob & Co. creations.
The black PVD flange contains eight diamond-shaped deflectors, which aim at raising the variance level of the roulette game. The wheel-track flange, that small wall at the foot of the upper side of the dial, is mirror polished, like on an actual roulette, and leaves a small space between the dial and the sapphire crystal. A space large enough for the entire dial and wheel-track to act as one continuous ensemble, but small enough for the ball to stay down and end up in one of the 37 pockets.
Pure sense of details
Although Casino offers a familiar face to those who already know Astronomia Casino, calibre JCAM51 is an entirely new creation. The Roulette module rests on a last-generation base calibre, with a comfortable and week-end-in-Vegas-proof power reserve of 72 hours. It’s regulated by a flying tourbillon located on the back side of the case.
Its carriage ushers in a new Jacob & Co. design as its arms are engraved and lacquered in the exact same way as the wheel head. This black and red pattern is also laid out on two applied plates, screwed on the caseback on either side of the bows acting as winding and time-setting crowns. The numbers appear in the same order as the ones on the opposite side of the Casino.
The sense of exhilaration and excitement that has become Jacob & Co.’s unique signature reaches a new level. The sleek, black dial of Casino has a tuxedo-like appeal. The Roulette complication is Vegas-worthy. And the understated yet highly symbolic tourbillon signals the true high watchmaking nature of Jacob & Co.’s watchmaking.
Jacob & Co. Casino Tourbillon Technical Specifications
Ref. CASINO ROULETTE TOURBILLON – $280,000 / 101 pieces limited edition
Movement:
- Caliber: Manufacture Jacob&Co. Manual Winding JCAM51
- Diameter: 36.00 mm
- Height: 9.05 mm
- Components: 268
- Jewels: 24
- Power Reserve: 72 Hours
- Frequency: 21’600 vib/h (3 Hz)
Functions:
- Hours and Minutes
- Flying Tourbillon on Caseback at 6 O’clock, 1 rotation/min
- Roulette Animation, on Demand with Pusher at 8 O’clock
- Winding and Time-Setting on Caseback
Case:
- Diameter: 44 mm
- Height: 16.30 mm
- Material: 18K Rose Gold;
- Case Back: 18K Rose Gold with Casino Engravings and Lacquered Roulette Pockets
- Pusher: 18K Rose Gold Pusher at 8 o’clock
- Crystal: Sapphire with Anti-Reflective Treatment
- Water resistance: 30m (3bar – 3 atm)
Dial & Hands:
- Dial: Black Onyx with 5N Gold Kite-shaped Indices
- Hands: Skeleton, 5N Gold, Red Tip, White SuperLuminova
- Roulette: Red, Black and Green Lacquered Pockets, Ceramic Ball
- Flange: Black PVD, 8 Rhodium-plated Diamond-shaped Deflectors
Strap & Clasp:
- Strap: Black Alligator
- Clasp: 18K Rose Gold Deployment Buckle
About Jacob & Co.
The driving force for Jacob & Co. is creativity. From his earliest beginnings in jewelry and watches, Jacob Arabo has been designing beautiful and innovative products. The breadth of Jacob & Co.’s offering shows the brand’s insatiable need to produce amazing pieces that the world has never seen before.
“I have to create,” says Mr. Arabo.”My dream has always been to invent things that haven’t been done before. For the brand, it’s about making the impossible reality.” Jacob & Co.’s mission is to create beautiful, dynamic and unique pieces of watchmaking and jewelry art.
To make the impossible a reality. Jacob Arabo lives to create timepieces and jewelry that the world has never seen. Take the Astronomia Collection as an example — a galaxy on the wrist, many Swiss watchmakers saw this idea as “Impossible.” Mr. Arabo took up the challenge and made this timepiece, and its many iterations, a reality… and a success.
Mr. Arabo is not content making hundreds of the same watches and jewelry. He lives to create and innovate, always working on the next ground-breaking, revolution idea. Jacob & Co. is a different kind of watch company, combining the daring and entrepreneurial spirit of America with the high watchmaking and high jewelry making of Switzerland. With a foot in both worlds, Mr. Arabo and his company are dedicated to shaking up the status quo.