3/6 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



It is also easy to understand why in the betting on 

 horse-racing in this country and others, success 

 ordinarily attends the professional bettor, rather than 

 the amateur , or, in the slang of the subject, why ' the 

 ring ' gets the advantage of ' the gentlemen ? ' Apart 

 from his access to secret sources of information, the 

 professional bettor nearly always * lays the odds,' that 

 is, bets against individual horses ; while the amateur 

 4 takes the odds,' or backs the horse he fancies. Now, if 

 the odds represented the strict value of the horse's 

 chance, it would be as safe in the long run to ' take ' 

 as to ' lay ' the odds. But no professional bettor lays 

 fair odds, save by mistake. Nor is it difficult to get 

 the amateur to take unfair odds. For ' backing ' is 

 seemingly a safe course. The ' backer ' risks a small 

 sum to gain a large one, and if the fair large sum is a 

 a little reduced, he still conceives that he is not risking 

 much. Yet (to take an example), if the true odds 

 are nine to one against a horse, and the amateur 

 sportsman consents to take eight to one in hundreds, 

 then, though he risks but a single hundred against the 

 chance of winning eight, he has been as truly swindled 

 out of ten pounds as though his pocket had been 

 picked of that sum. This is easily shown. The total 

 sum staked is nine hundred pounds, and at the odds of 

 nine to one, the stakes should have been respectively 

 ninety pounds and eight hundred and ten pounds. Our 

 amateur should, therefore, only have risked ninety 

 pounds for his fair chance of the total sum staked. But 

 he has been persuaded to risk one hundred pounds for 



