The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-01-15
POOLROOM SALES.
Wagers Accepted After
Known Results.
A CLEAN CASE OF SWINDLE.
How the Club Fights Enable the Elect
to Make Pot of Money
Without Risk.

You can make money quick and easy just
now If you will only start poolroom. But
you Will have to get in very quick, for the
game is too good to last. and it will not be
long before the poolrooms are closed up
As now managed. pool-seling beats poker
and placer mining out of sight as q money
making business.
You require very little capital, and a
straw bond of $4,000, deposited with the
County Clerk in accordance with law, will
relieve you OF all need of references or char
acter.
A CALL reporter who has been iuvesti-
eating the business lately found reason to
doubt the assertion that the athletic clubs,
so called, and the poolroom sharps are at
outs"
The proposition seems to be rather that
there is an exact ratio between the number
OF fighting athletic clubs and the number of
poorooms; that as the form r increase tue
latter multiply.
Fights in the old days were arranged be-
tween emulous and rival "pugs" TO settle
vexed questions of proves and superiority.
A square fight was the rule, "cross" or a
fake the exception.
To-day the chief ambition of the so-cGlled
managers OF sporting events seems to be to
find pugilists who can stand a certain
amount of battering without giving away
the fact that they have been paid to lie
down, or II such accommodating gentlemen
cannot be obtained to get an assurance
from both principals that the fight will last
a certain number OF rounds
With this knowledge in advance the pool
room sharp has the keys of the golden
chest OF popular credulity in his hands.
Practically there has not been a real hard
square fight of any account in the local clubs
for nearly two years, that is since Kirain
and Godfrey fought.
"The reason of this" said young habi-
tue of the poOlrooms, sis that there is
heap of money in selling pools on fights.
and it pays the pugilists better to win or
lose. according to instructions, than to
make square wrestle' OF it.
II will say without hesitation that In
pretty nearly every case pools are sold after
the fight Is over and after the sellers know
who has won. 1t is no business of theirs If
you are fool and lose your money.
''H0w do they get the news ahead of the
game?
"Why. that Is the simplest thing in the
world. In a club where fights are con-
Quoted on regular basis 1t is forbidden to
send messages out of the room until the
fight is over None of the spectators, none
of the telegraph operators are allowed to
leave.
''That seems fair enough on the surface,
but 1t only acts as bait to fools. Many
men will not begin to bet until the fight is
far advanced, and it is just there that the
suckers are caught.
''You can put it down as general prin-'
ciDle that the booksellers always know the
result before they make bets, aud this is
specially true in betting by rounds.
in the Dixon-Skelly fight, which / wit
messed, pools were being sold ten minutes
after the fight was over. How many pools
were sold i'll that time l don't know, but the
booksellers must have raked in hundreds OF
dollars.
take the Reese and Jones fight the other
night Pools were sold after the fight was
over. The booksellers took In the money
and never said word. Why. people from
the club who had seen Reess knocked out
actually went into one place and bought
pools. The odds were then 10 TO on Jones,
and OF course the suckers not knowing
what the others did, that Jones had already
won, snapped up the long odds
81 haven't the least doubt in the world
that there Is some system by which the
booksellers get news from the inside OF the
arena where fight is in progress that ena-
bles them to beat the telegraph service as 1t
Is supposed to be conducted.
Take the plan of calling out the progress
of fight from round to round. 1t looks
fair and square enough, but round only
lasts three minutes. and sometimes nothing
will be called off for fifteen minutes. Then
| dispatch comes in which the BOOKSELLER
opens aud makes great pretense or read
| ing.
ut may relate what is going on In the
| tenth round, while he knows in some other
way what has happened in the thirteenth
| and even the result OF the fight. Whatever
| he knows he keeps to himself, and in the
| meantime the betting goes on.
| I'm the Sullivan Corbelt fight one sport
| ing-house in this city was in possession of
| the result ten minutes at least before any
| body got it in the regular way, and hundreds
| of pools were sold in that time
You can win big lot of money in ten
| minutes, for most of the betting in pool
| rooms is done at the last moment"
When THE CALL reporter pursued his
| inquiries as TO the manner in which this