The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-08-30
WALL OF THE HANDBOOK MAN.
KNOWING BETTORS AND PfkERS
MAKE HIN WEARY.
And They're About All the Customers Hs
Gets. So He's Going Broke, While Up
mt Saratoga the Boobies Are Making
FOrtuleS--The P00lrOOm Ills Choice.

10 Nv S%utORn tIle hbOOk1eS arc NuAkinS
FOrtunes--The POolroOm Ills Choice.
The handbook man shook his head.
Rolls gone" he said. mo business doin'
with mo to-day.
Looks easy this. don't 1t? No expenses
such as a bookmaker has with his clerks
and his entrance fee and such No wire
charges and rent like a poolroom has.
But it isn't bit easy, this making hand-
book.
ITS blind game. You get the wise
play only and you've got to beat a tip or
fool fellow who's got wad Of dope in
his hind pocket to get the money. There's
no ublic money, the soft kind that you
find up Saratoga ways. I've been book
ing on the same races that the books up
there have been eating up, and here Pm
broke.
Why? Well, up there this season they've
tripped the favorites as II they had wires
stretched across tho track. Saratoga's .
favorite players headquarters. The pub
| lie likes to s. Used to have small fields
at Saratoga, four or Ave favorites a day
and steady. reliable old nags to bet ON.
/ This year it's all different. except that the
play still goes to the favorites and the
money to the books. They tell me the
bookies who went up there are to the good,
every one OF them, from $4,000 to $3.50. 900.
the last figure being Billy Cowan's margin.
| 4See that little man piking up Broadway
| there with an armful Of bundles and Q
wife in the wake? That's Hill, who runs
the Alexandria poolroom. He put UP the
! bank roll for one OF the big books at Sara
toga that's $lOO, 900 to the good. 7 suppose
he came over from Washington to spend
| a little for fnery. And here am, broke
| by the same races
AT the track you get line on what the
| wise fellows are playing. 1 don't moan
all the owners. but the silent guys who
bet under cover. There's a chance to
follow the man who's playing lucky and to
take the play OF the unlucky man. There's
a chance to round your book. shade the
prices and do some problems In mathe-
, matics. Making handbook you take tho
play and pay off on the morning paper
prices. These are furnished by the Nets,
and they're more liberal than the ring
prices average, because the Nets don't
want O man to take their official figures
and by doing a little stunt in calculation
produce the fact that they're making
| l50 per cent. book.
Speaking OF percentages noticed the
odds proclaimed the other day on the Fu-
turity by one of the layers who admits that
he's made 500, 90 at Saratoga. 1t figured
| out 1926 per cent. Men who gamble think
the fellows sucker who goes against the
5-l9 OF roulette or the average Of four
! splits to the deal at faro and then they
/ go right against 80 to 40 per cent. on horse
! race.
! The future books the softest thing since
F.; the term easy money was coined 1t gets
| free advertising all through the country.
writes short prices and cleans up a winner
every time. Seems to me l read in The
| Sun that Jim O'Leary OF Chicago made over
$500, 900 on one Of his future books this
! spring. Well, when a man like Sydney
Paget takes to on his filly week before
the Futurity and John Madden bets at
| 81, on his Adbell for the same race, a future
| book Just cant lose.
"One of the few bets cashed this year in
| future books was T. f.. Smathers's big bet
| on Nee hesney in the Harlem. A man ought
| to be content to make an even 100 per cent.
! book on future races when you consider the
possibilities of accidents to a horse before
! The race, which will compel his withdrawal.
| toget her with the existing element OF chance
| III the race.
"A little while ago one of the Jockey Club
members protested because future book
| heightened the price on his horse TO a
tempting figure after the horse had been
| officially withdrawn from the race. The
bookmaker knew the horse wasn't going
| to start. He Just tried to sucker the less
! informed part of the public out Of its
| money.
| Well, the handbook man doesn't get a
chance to round his book. Maybe, he'll
only get play on two or three horses and
| they come in the money and he'll have moth
| ing to Offset the pay out Small bettors
| play horses in the blind when they wouldn't
| bet on them if they knew the prices. An
! instance Of that put me out of business.
There's a fellow near here who steals
out of a factory at lunch time with his
overas on and bets me- 81 or s. on horse.
! One night last week he won few dollars
! in a ten-cent- limit poker game somewhere.
! He brought it in next morning-jus 50.
/ Two dollars of it was in ten-cent pieces.
| He had the names OF two horses on slip
! of paper.
Here's one In the second race, said he.
| 'that'll be about even money. Bet the
| so on him. II that wins, bet IL all on this
| baby in the fourth. | don't expect to get
better than to on him
! They did look like two natural favorites.
| but the play at Saratoga went elsewhere.
| My man was natural born piker. II
! he played horse that was better than
| 3 to he always went out on the limb for the
| show price.
| We'll. the first horse he named won al
y 10 L. lldJ gave MN d SUIT tDthI OK SNl
| The second one got the decision by nose
at 10 to l. The guy came in next morning
for his ssel. I had been nursing $500
borrowed bank roll along carefully and had
it up to 5000 He got all OF it but So An
other player hit me for $50 and had to
! 30 dig to make good to him l think I'd
Ike TO play meal ticket three WAYS to-day.
I'm out of line now and the piker with
my bank roll is hardly over his fright II
he'd known the prices he wouldn't have
won more than S25 from me. Now some
body will get that money away from him
before | can get another roll together and
take his play.
THAT reminds me that man stopping nj
the hotel wanted to bet me $50 each way
this morning on second favorite that the
ticker tells me wasn't in the money. ~ the
piker hadn't got my roll I'd have made
enough for to-day.
"For me, give mo the poolroom whero
you have wires from three tracks. eighteen
races for the lads to bet on, and tho GUS
toners Locked in. Then if you can't get
the money good-bv,"
SNAKES PTNGHED HIS LEO.