Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-26
BETTING BY PHONE
ON THE RACES

Betting by telephone on the races came
to a sudden. il temporary. end In Washing
ton a couple of weeks ago The conFicuoh
of a Ith street handbook man. dealer In
cigars, who not only was fined but received
a sentence TO a term of imprisonment was
the carse of it. The handbook men took
genuine alarm at the sentence imposed upon
This member of their ilk. The average
handbook man can contemplate with COM
parative complacency the imposition of
moderate or even stiff fine by the court
when he is caught with the goods; but
handbook men are not the KIND or people
who can see" this thing of doing bits
behind the bars for engaging In the price
LAYING traffic, So the handbook men be-
came exceedingly wary when they heard
of their colleagues conviction and sentence
to Jail. One of the first "leery' things they
did was to notify their telephone clients
that there'd be nothing doing over the
wire for a little while. until the activity
OF the detectives assigned TO evidence
getting in handbook cases simmefed DOWN
bit The detectives. they knew, had too
fair a chance TO trace them through the
telephone bets, and, under the District law
against gambling. 1t is just as easy to be
convicted of setting up gaming table.
technically speaking. when only the teie-
Phone is used in the making of bet or
the laying of a price, as 1t Is when an ac-
tuai exchange of money is noted by wit
resSes.
so the handbook folks stopped using the
telephone wire for their betting operations,
and il is not TO be supposed that the ces-
sation of this branch OF their business did
not involve big sacrifice.
How the Betting Was Done.
Ii would not be stretching the matter to
state that perhaps the most OF the horse
betting in the handbooks of Washington
had, up to that time, been done by means
OF the telephone. The man with the bunch
or the information horse would drop
into a saloon or q cigar store where he
was we'll known, name his horse or his
combination of horses to the proprietor, and
the latter would simply go to the phone
and send the horses name or the list OF
horses over the wire to the handbook man.
The proprietor would pay Off winning bets
himself, and then have a weekly settlement
with the handbook man. Thus the man ac-
tually making the bet never came into con-
tact with the actual maker of the hand
book at ALL At certain cigar store IN
mind the proprietor of the establishment
himself had only rnet up with the handbook
man two or three times. although using the
phone leading to the handbook mans Office
every day for six months. About half a
dozen betters used to phone In the cigar
store and they kept about even terms
with the game all the time. So the hand
book man had little occasion to visit the
cigar store mans place. and he only drop
ped around two or three times In the course
of the six months to verify the account
and balance IL.
Not long ago the New York handbook
men had to considerably curtaiI their -tele
phone business. owing to the fact that a
large number of them were "stung" in
quick succession through clever lodges
worked up by ingenious persons who needed
the money. The system of betting by tele-
phone prevailing In New York was slightly
different from that in use in Washington.
There are thousands of confirmed horse
players over there, so that 1t was necessary
The betters did their betting over the wire,
and had weekly settlements directly with
the makers of the handbooks. This sort OF
betting still goes on over In the big town,
although the handbook men had to throw a
number OF safeguards around the system
owing to the schemes worked up to beat It
by the cheerful workers. Each OF the teIe-
phone clients In New York is provided with
q code word by the handbook man with
whom he trades The telephone code word
Is changed each week. When the hand
book collector makes his weekly round to
collect losing bets or pay winning wagers
he hands the client the code word for the
ensuing week.
A New York Managers Experiences.
Some months ago q well-known New
York theatrical manager who had been
playing over the phone tips teIegraphed 20
him By his friends 1t the winter tfHcA1
went awey from New York e 1pin me q
I ~ tos =