I think I know almost every town in England, and I
never yet in all my wanderings settled at an inn without finding that
betting of some sort or other formed the main subject of conversation.
Hundreds of times--literally hundreds--I have known whole evenings
devoted to discussing the odds. The gamblers were usually men who did
not care to see horses gallop; they chatted about names, and that
satisfied them. A clerk, a mechanic, a tradesman, a traveller, a
publican asks his friend what he has done over such and such a race,
just as he asks after the friend's health. It is taken for granted that
everybody bets, and really intelligent fellows will stare at you in
astonishment if you say that you are not interested in the result of a
race. If I chose to make a book--only dealing in small sums--I could
contrive to win a fair amount every week by merely "betting to figures."
The bookmaker does not need to visit a racecourse; he is required to
work out a sort of algebraical problem on each race, and, by exercising
a little shrewdness, he may leave himself a small balance on every
event.
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