Chance and Luck

When I was traveling in Australasia, I saw a good deal of a class of men with whom, in this country, only betting men are likely to come much in contact -- bookmakers, or men who make a profession of betting. What struck me most, perhaps, at first was that they regarded their business as a distinct profession. Just as a man would say in England, 'I am a lawyer or a doctor,' so these men would say that they were bookmakers. Yet, on consideration, I saw that there was nothing altogether novel in this. Others, whose business really is to gain money by making use of the weaknesses of their fellow-men, have not scrupled to call their employment a trade or a profession. Madame Rachel might have even raised her special occupation to the dignity of 'a mystery' on Shakespearean grounds ('Painting, sir, I have heard say is a mystery, and members of my occupation using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery'); and if aught of wrong in his employment could be made out to the satisfaction of a bookmaker, his answer might be Shakespearean also, 'Other sorts offend as well as we -- ay, and better (ay, bettor) too.'

My own views about betting and bookmaking are regarded by many as unduly harsh, though I have admitted that the immorality which I find in betting has no existence with those who have not weighed the considerations on which a just opinion is based. I regard betting as essentially immoral so soon as its true nature is recognized. When a wager is made, and when after it has been lost and won its conditions are fulfilled, money has passed from one person to another without any 'work done' by which society is benefited. The feeling underlying the transaction has been greed of gain, however disguised as merely strong advocacy of some opinion -- an opinion, perhaps, as to whether some horse will run a certain distance faster than another, whether certain dice will show a greater or less number of points, or the like. If here and there some few are to be found so strangely constituted mentally as really to take interest in having correct opinions on such matters, they are so few that they do not affect the general conclusion. They may bet to show they really think in such and such a way, and not to win money; but the great majority of betting men, professional (save the mark) or otherwise, want to win money, which is right enough, and to win money without working or doing some good for it, which is essentially immoral. That in a very large proportion of cases this negative immorality assumes a positive form -- men trying to make unfair wagers (by betting with unfair knowledge of the real chances) -- no one acquainted with the betting world, no one who reads a sporting paper, no one even who reads the sporting columns of the daily papers, can fail to see. Why, if half the assurances of the various sporting prophets were trustworthy, betting, assisted by their instructions, would be as dishonorable as gambling with marked cards, as dishonest as picking pockets. Here is my 'Vaticinator,'^[5] the betting man might say, who says that Roguery is almost sure to win the 'Beggar my Neighbor' stakes, but if he does not, that speedy mare, Rascality, will unquestionably win. Here are the bookmakers, who seem all quite as ready to lay the odds against Roguery and Rascality as against any of the other horses, to say nothing of my friends, Verdant and Flathead, who will freely back any of these latter. Now, if I back Roguery and Rascality with the bookmakers, and lay odds against the certain losers in the race, I shall certainly win all round. Of course, 'Vaticinator' is not the prophet he claims to be, but the betting man of our soliloquy supposes that he is; and so far as the morality of the course the latter follows is concerned the case is the same as though 'Vaticinator's' prophecies were gospel. There is not a particle of real distinction between what the bettor wants to do, and what a gambler, with cogged dice or marked cards, actually does. The more knowing a betting man claims to be, the easier it is to see that he wants and expects to take unfair advantage of other men. Either he knows more than those he bets with about the real conditions of the race or contest on which they wager, or he does not. If he does, he wagers with them unfairly, and might as well pick their pockets. If he does not, but fancies he does, he is as dishonest in intention as he is in the former case in reality. If he does not, and knows he does not, he simply lies in claiming to know more than he does. In claiming to be knowing, he really claims to be dishonest and (which is not quite the same thing) dishonorable; and probably his claim is just.

[5] I hope there is no turf prophet with this nom-de-plume. I know of none, or I would not use the name; but it may have been hit upon by some sporting man with a taste for polysyllables.