GAMBLING CRAZE

Evening Star, Issue 21232, 13 October 1932, Page 11

GAMBLING CRAZE

EVER WIDER IN SCOPE So commonly have periodical desires arisen among masses of people to indulge in gambling that there has been coined the term of “ the gambling fever,” visitations of which are quite epidemic. But it is open to question whether so irradicablo an instinct of mankind can be regarded as a fever any more than such natural instincts as, for instance, the desire to eat and sleep. Certain it is that all the laws and restrictions that have endeavoured to stamp out gambling have been no less futile than King Canute’s historic attempt to stay the incoming tide, and it can be safelj said that the gambling passion has never been so universal as at the present time. Perhaps the “gambler's throw ” has never had a more tensely dramatic setting than in the Derby of 1867, when there was so thick a snowstorm that the horses for the great race were kept waiting at the post half an hour until it stopped. It was generally known that the wild Marquis of Hastings had definitely challenged Henry Chaplin and had laid huge sums against the latter’s horse Hermit. But the young men had been rivals in an even more romantic chase than this. Everyone at Epsom that year must have known how Henry Chaplin had been engaged to “ the pocket Venus,” as Lady Florence Paget was called, and how she had run away through a London departmental store, into the arms of Lord Hastings, who waited for her at the other door and married her at once. Everyone at Epsom knew the enormous amounts Lord Hastings atood to lose. Everyone at Epsom Knew that Henry Chaplin’s horse had had a breakdown sufficient to smash the chances of ninety-nine thoroughbreds out of 100, Then Hermit won! Practically everyone will be familiar with the stories of the gambling orgies of the notorious Crockford’s Club, on whose site now stands the Devonshire in St. James,’s, that street of famous London clubs. Wagers of substantial sums were made on the most preposterous issues. It is on that heavy bets were made as_ to which of two drops of rain trickling down a window pane would reach the bottom first. A man collapsed at the door of the famous club, and there was much wagering as to whether not he was really dead. About the middle of last century Lord Cavendish bet a fellowmember that he would kill a bluebottle before going to bed. . On another occasion feverish gambling took place as to the exact spot at which a street hawker would drop a basket which she was carrying on her head, the hawker being blissfully unaware of the excitement with which her progress was being watched from a window of a certain famous club. _ The laws of chance—for paradoxically enough, there are laws—have been carefully studied by mathematicians, and provide some interesting facts for the gambler. A knowledge of these laws should enable one. provided one has sufficient capital and can get the right cdds, to win every time. Unfortunately for the gambler m all largescale operations, such as the sweep and roulette, “the house” always works the odds so that they are slightly in its favour, which means that in the end the bouse always wins. The simplest form of gambling, perhaps. is that of calling “heads or “ tails ” to a coin (writes Picrrg Quiroule, in the Johannesburg Star ). The odds are even on either heads or tails turning up. But the vast majority of people labour under the delusion that if heads turned up on the last toss there is a stronger probability of tails turning up this time. This is a fallacy, since each toss is a separate action and has no relation whatever to anything that has gone before. If beads have turned up seven times running, most people would be prepared to give long odds on tails turning up the eighth time. They are wrong. The eighth toss still gives an even chance for heads or tails! This applies equally to the twentieth toss, or, for that matter, the hundredth toss. Overlooking this fact has made many a man return poorer from his holiday in Monte Carlo. He has seen “ white ” turn up, perhaps twenty times running, at the table. He puts a large stake on black for the_ twentyfirst turn of the wheel—and white turns up again. Each turn of the wheel is, from a scientific point of view, a separate action, and there is no reason why one colour should not turn up. fifty or a hundred times running—as it sometimes does. The fact that black turned up for the forty-ninth time has no more relationship to the result of the fiftieth throw than the weather or the news bulletin. In England at the present moment the problem of gambling has become a burning question by reason of the illogical position created by the Dublin sweepstake. While sweepstakes are illegal in England, it is admitted that most of the money raised by the Irish “sweep” comes from English subscribers, who thus not only contribute handsomely to the upkeep of the Irish hospitals, hut will in future, in view

of the Irish Free State Government’* imposition of a levy of 25 per cent, of the hospital proceeds, also contribute some £650,000 annually to the revenues of the Free State. This anomalous posi. tion has decided the British Government to set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole question of the gaming laws, but it is very doubtful whether any definite conclusions will result. There was a time, however,when lotteries were authorised in England, and between the years 1793-182-1 the Government actually raised an average annual sum of £350,000 by such means.