Los Angeles herald., 1907-03-17
BETTERS HAVE
LITTLE CHANCE
AGAINST BOOKS
System Playing Does
Little Good
No Danger Of Knights Of the Chalk
Ending the Season Without a
Healthy Wad Of
Wealth

When plunger or a piker beats
the ponies the news quickly spreads
and 1t is this form of bait which draws
more people to the race tracks of the
county mot forgetting the hand books)
than any other
OF course. it is q happy moment for
the plunger when he jingles a pocket
| ful OF bright twenty-dolar gold pieces
or counts roll OF crisp twenties as a
result of his good judgment and
nerve" but It is positively catching
irresistible, to watch piker pull down
a hundred bucks as a result of a one
| dollar investment.
Every man who has gambled. and
many who have not. know what "sys-
tenn betting" is. They may not know
how many systems there are (Which,
indeed, would be impossible to figure),
but they know that one man plays the
dope system. depending on past rec
ords TO pick the winner; they know
that some play long shots; they know
that some play favorites; they under
stand that several men have become
rich from doubling up"-that is, play
ing more and more on each succeeding
race until a winner comes through,
and then dropping back to the original
dollar to hundreds or thousands.
Few Favorites Win
But the number who take a whole
seasons races, figure the odds after
the races have been run and draw de-
ductions for future reference are few
indeed. Therefore a careful perusal Of
the races at Ascot, beginning with the
first one of the season and continuing
up to the present time, will furnish in
teresting information even if 1t fails
to wise" some of the everyday bet
ters and show them the error of their
way.
Take, for instance, the first $40 races
of the season, which means all of the
races run at Ascot up to and including
Wednesdays events. Out of this num-
Der 312 favortes were defeated; or,
in other words, 22S favorites won. The
balance of the events went to second
and third choices or outsiders-"long
shots" the pikers are pleased to call
them.
Now, supposing that man with
limited capital started out the first
day to play ten dollars on each IA
vorite. At the prevailing odds he
would have won S2S92. That is, on the
22S favorites that finished first he
would have Won this amount. This
means that he would have received
odds averaging about 10 to 10. But,
on the other hand, he would have lost
ten dollars in each of 312 races, or q
total of 1920. This would leave him
$22S behind on the season. There have
been times no doubt when those who
play favorites for an entire season
would have Jared better, and many
other seasons when they would have
Jared worse. So much for those who
favor placing their money on the first
choices. But it is easy to be seen that
if enough bets on the favorites are
made the bookies will not have to walk
out of town at the close of the season,
and furthermore that they will always
have large bank roll on hand to pay
the few bets made on long shots that
come through.
Hard on Bank Rolls
But some will argue that by playing
favorites and doubling up when a bet
is lost any one can beat the ponies
This argument holds good in some
cases; in others it means that the
largest bank roll will be punctured
earlier or later-generally earlier.
AS an illustration, suppose that a
plunger started out to bet $50 on each
tavorite Then, supposing. again, you
followed that fellow to the races at
ASCOT last Thursday, when only one
faVorite finished in the money and
none of them won. His first bet would
have been $50, his next would have
been $10O, his third 5000, hisSfourth s4OO
his fifth $500, his sixth $1,000. And even
then he would have come away with
nothing but six losing tickets to rem
resent his investment of $315O. Rut
for arguments sake we will saw that
the man in question had money to
burn and decided to recoup his losses
the next day. He would have TO bet
S32OO right off the reel on the first
race the following day, and the chances
are the bookies would have refused
such a large bet. or, better still for
them, would have accepted it and
framed up the race to meet the "ener-
gency." AS proof that there is practi-
cally no limit to the resources of the
horse owners. jockeys and bookies
please peruse the dope book for Ascot
this season and there learn that eight
favorites went down to defeat in a
row. which would have made our un-
named friend bet $12,SOO before he
could cash a bet, and this amount on
single race, too. His total investment
would have been $25550, and unless he
owned several thousand shares OF "oc-
topus" stock he would have had heart
disease and possibly appendicitis be-
fore buying the last ticket.
Excuses for Not Winning
But, the wise one will argue, 1 know
, ~ II H ~ TT