north of England. A fourth was a journeyman
printer. A fifth used to drive a hansom cab.
All these men began with small beginnings, and
rose upon their capacity for, and knowledge
of, figures. The writer is no advocate of
betting. If any one asked his advice how to lay
out his money on a horse-race, he would recommend
his client to leave the thing alone. In
fact, the very winnings of the new calling are
of themselves proofs enough that, as a rule, the
public must lose its money, and the bookmakers
must win.

But how is it that this new calling makes
its money—what is the mode of procedure?

Let us suppose that Jones, solicitor,
Lincoln's Inn, wishes to back Formosa for the
Derby. Jones has an idea that he knows a
thing or two—which he does not—about a
horse, and, looking in his newspaper, finds that
the odds against the above mare are, let us say,
ten to one. All he does, is to send his money
to some respectable well-known bookmaker,
and the latter returns him a ticket, whereby
he promises to pay Jones the given odds,
plus the money paid to him, the bookmaker,
in the event of Formosa winning. Let us
say that Jones makes up his mind to risk
"a fiver" on the mare's winning; he sends
Thompson, the bookmaker, a five-pound note,
and gets in return a ticket, by which, in the
event of Formosa winning the Derby, Thompson
pledges himself to pay Jones fifty-five
pounds; that is, fifty pounds as the odds against
the mare (ten to one), and the five pounds
paid back again. If Jones should be fortunate,
and Formosa should win, the money is safe
to be paid the day after the race. Thompson
is a respectable bookmaker, and his ticket is as
good as gold. If, on the other hand, the mare
loses, then Jones sees no more of his five pounds,
which become the bookmaker's lawful winnings.

The uninitiated will ask how it is that the
new calling can be a profitable calling, if, as a
rule—and, by the way, it is the rule—the
bookmakers lay the odds against the horses. Thus,
in the example just given, the bookmaker has
a chance of winning five pounds, but he has also
a chance of losing fifty; and as the odds are
often a hundred, a hundred and fifty, even two
hundred, to one against a horse, the bookmaker
must risk that amount for the chance of winning
a single sovereign. A few minutes' consideration
will demonstrate how, in the long run—
nay, even on almost every event—the
bookmaker, who makes betting his trade, must win,
and the outside public—though a few here and
there may win—must lose.

Let us suppose that for a certain race
there are twenty horses to run. Of these, we
will suppose that the favourite, or the horse
believed most likely to win, stands in the
betting at five to one—that is, five to one is
bet that such horse does not win the race. Let
us further suppose that the second horse is
quoted at ten to one against him, the third at
fifteen or twenty to one, and so on down to
what are called the "outsiders"—the horses
supposed to have very little chance of winning
—some of which are quoted at sixty, seventy,
or even eighty and a hundred, to one, against
them. It is very certain that of all these horses
only one can win, and if the bookmaker
confined himself to laying single bets against
all the twenty, he would make but a small
profit, if one of the favourites won, and would be
a heavy loser if any other horse came in first;
in other words, if he took the odds of one
pound each in favour of the twenty horses, and
any horse against which he had bet more than
twenty to one lost the race, he would be a
loser. On the one hand he would have
received twenty pounds, but on the other he
would have to pay the odds he had laid
against the horse that had won. If, however,
the favourite, against which he had only bet
five to one was the winner, he would have
received twenty pounds, and would only have to
pay away six—namely, the five he had bet, plus
the one he had been paid by the backer of the
horse. If, again, the horse against which he
had bet ten to one were the winner, he would,
out of the twenty pounds he had received, have
to pay away eleven—the ten pounds odds and
the one pound received from the backer—and
thus he would be a winner of nine pounds, and
so on throughout the list of horses.

To a certain extent this theory is true. So
much so, that when a favourite horse for a race
wins, the event is called "a good thing for the
bookmakers;" and when a horse low down in
the betting wins, the race is said to be good for
the "backers"—that is, for the outside public.
But, the bookmaker makes betting his profession,
and the very term of "making a book"
means to have such a combination of bets in his
book that he not only cannot lose, but, that no
matter what horse comes in first, he must win.
Thus, on all the great races he commences
betting a year, or perhaps eighteen months
before the event. Whenever he sees that he is
in danger of losing a heavy sum in the event of
any particular horse winning, he either stops
betting altogether, and says he "is full" on
that horse, or more generally takes the bets
offered him by the general public, and "hedges"
them at some other place of betting resource,
with his brother bookmakers, or with other
betting men.

What is meant by the term "to hedge" a
bet? Let us suppose that Thompson, the
bookmaker, finds that if Blue Gown wins the Derby,
he will be the loser of a thousand pounds; that
is, so many of the public have taken the
odds of five to one against the horse, that even
calculating what he will pocket by other horses
losing, he will still be a loser to the above
amount should the favourite win. Still the
public go on backing the horse, and thereby
increasing his risk. If he were to shut up his
book, and refuse to bet against the horse any
more, he would lose many clients, for members
of the new calling are supposed to be always
ready to take the odds to any amount from
the backers of horses. So Thompson goes to