132 



• KNO^A/'LEDGE 



[Diea 16, 1881. 



BETTING AND MATHEMATICS. 



By tub Editor. 



WHEN I was ti-avc'lling in Australasia, I .saw a good 

 deal of a class of uit'ii witli wliicli, in this coiiiitiy, 

 only Ijotting men arc likt'ly to conu- much in contact — 

 l>ookniakcrs, or men who niak(^ a profession of ln'tting. 

 VVliat struck me most, perhaps, at first was, that they 

 regarded tlicir business as a distinct profession. Just a.s a 

 man would say in England, I am a lawyer or a doctor, so 

 these men would say that they wen^ bookmakers. Yet, on 

 consideration, I saw that there was nothing altogetlier 

 novel in this. Others, whoso business really is to gain 

 money by making use of the weaknesses of their fellow- 

 men, have not scrupled to call their employment a trader 

 or a profession. Jladame Kachel might have even raised 

 her special occupation to the dignity of " a mystery " on 

 Shakespearean grounds (" Painting, sir, I have heard say is 

 a mysterj', and members of mj' occupation using painting, 

 do prove mj* occupation a niysteiy ") ; and if aught of 

 wTong in his employment could be made out to the satis- 

 faction of a bookmaker, his answer might be Shakespearean 

 also, " Other sorts offend as well as we — ay, and bettoi-, 

 too." 



My own views about betting and bookmaking are re- 

 gai-ded by many as unduly harsli, though I have admitted 

 tliat the immorality which I find in betting has no exist- 

 ence with those who have not weighed the considerations 

 on which a just opinion is based. I regard betting as 

 essentially immoral so soon as its true nature is recognised. 

 When a wagor is made, and when after it lias been lost and 

 won its conditions are fulfilled, money has passed from one 

 person to another without any "work done ' by which society 

 is benefited. The feeling underlying the transaction has been 

 greed of gain, however disguised as merely strong advo- 

 cacy of some opinion — au opinion, perhaps, as to whether 

 some horse w-ill run a certain distance faster than another, 

 whether certain dice will show a greater or less number of 

 points, or the like. If here and there some few are to be 

 found so strangely constituted mentally as really to take 

 interest in having correct opinions on such matters, 

 they are so few that they do not affect the general 

 conclusion. They may bet to show they really think 

 in such and such a w-ay, and not to win money ; 

 but the great majority of betting men, professional 

 (.save the mark) or otherwise, want to win money 

 (which is right enough), and to win money without 

 working or doing some good for it, which is essentially 

 immoral. Tliat in a very large proportion of cases this 

 negative immorality assumes a positive form — men trying 

 to make unfair wagers (by betting with unfair knowledge 

 of the real chances) — no one acquainted with the betting 

 world, no one who reads a sporting paper, no one even who 

 reads the sporting columns of the daily papers, can fail to 

 see. Why, if half the assurances of the various sporting 

 prophets were trustworthy, betting, assisted by their in- 

 structions, would be as dishonourable as gambling with 

 marked cards, as dishonest as picking pockets. Here is my 

 " Vaticinator,"* the betting man might say, who says that 

 Roguery is almost sure to win the " Beggar my Neigh- 

 bour " stakes, but if he docs not, that speedy mare. 

 Rascality, will unquestionably win. Here are the book- 

 makers, who seem all (juite as ready to lay the odds against 

 Roguery and Rascjility as against any of the other horses, 

 to say nothing of my friends, Verdant and Flathead, who 



• I hope there is no turf prophet with this nom-d,'-ptumir. I 

 know of none, or I would not use the namo ; but it may have bccu 

 hit upon by eome sporting man with a taste for polysyliables. 



will freely l)ack any of these latter. Now, if I back 

 Roguery nnd Itascality with the Ijookmakers, and lay 

 odds against tlur certain losers in tho race, I .shall 

 certainly win all round. Of cour-so, "Vaticinator" is not 

 the pro{ih<'t he claims to Ix;, but tlic betting-man of our 

 soliloquy supposes that !ie is, and so far as tho morality of 

 the course the latter follows is concerned, tho case Ls the 

 same as though " Vaticinator's " projihecies were gospel. 

 There is not a particle of real distinction Ijctween 

 what the bettor wants to do, and what a gambler, 

 with cogged dice or marked cards, actually docs. The 

 more knowing a betting man claims to be, the ea-sier 

 it is to see that ho wants and expects to take unfair 

 advantage of other men. Either he knows more than 

 those he bets with about the real conditions of the race or 

 contest on which they wager, or he does not. If he does, 

 he wagers with thern unfairly, and might as well pick their 

 pockets. If he does not, but fancies he does, he is as dis- 

 honest in intention as he is in the former case in reality. 

 If he does not, and knows he does not, he simply lies in 

 claiming to know more than he does. In claiming to 1)6 

 knowing, he really claims to be dishonest and (which is 

 not quite the same thing) dishonourable ; and pro- 

 bably his claim is ju.st. Of course, this is only a 

 comparatively mild case. Men have been known to 

 take the odds against a horse after they knew certainly 

 that the horse would not run. Others, a shade more 

 advanced, have been known to bribe a jockey to '• hold," 

 or " rope ' a horse, or a stableman to poison or stupefy 

 him. Owners — aye, even " noble ' owners^have been 

 known to work the market in ways fully a.s flagitious. 

 Every one agrees about these. But the majority are dis- 

 posed to stare, and perhaps to sneer, when Herbert 

 Spencer describes ordinary, and what is commonly called 

 fair gambling, as immoral ; and the calmness with which a 

 betting man claims to be knowing, shows that he, at any 

 rate, does not think wagering with unfair knowledge (with 

 any knowledge, I suppose, short of absolute certainty) 

 dishonourable. He argues, and many who do not bet argue 

 for him, that he takes his chance with others ; as if it 

 might not quite as justly be argued that the pickpocket 

 takes his chance between a successfid transaction and the 

 prison cell. 



As one of our " Five of Clubs," I gave last week a 

 ease in which a certain man of title used to offer freely 

 — and possibly with a sense that he was acting quite 

 fairly — a most unfair wager, though it seemed a very 

 generous one. Odds of a thousand pounds to one are 

 very tempting to the inexperienced. " I risk my pound," 

 such a one will say, " but no more, and I may win a 

 thousand.' That is the cliaiicc ; and what is the crrtaiiU;/? 

 The certainty is that in the long run such bets will involve 

 a loss of £l,cS"2S for each thousand pounds gained, or a net 

 loss of £828. As certain to all intents as that two and 

 two make four, a large number of wagers made on this plan 

 would mean for the clever layer of the odds a very large 

 gain. Yet Lord Yarborough would probably have been 

 indignant to a degi'ce if he had been told that in taking £1 

 for each hand on which ho wageretl which did not prove 

 to be a "Yarborough," he was in truth defrauding the 

 holder of the hand of 9s. Ojd. — notwithstanding the pre- 

 liminary agreement, simply because the preliminary agree- 

 ment was an unfair onei As to his being told that even if 

 he had wagered £1,828 against .£1 the transaction would 

 have been intrinsically immoral, doulitless he and his 

 opponent woidd equally have scouted the idea. 



A curious instance of the loss of all sense of honour, or 

 even honesty, which betting begets, occurred to me whea I 

 was in New Zealand. A bookmaker ("by profession," as 



