FILLING THE BAG.

Mataura Ensign, 17 April 1917, Page 7

FILLING THE BAG.

NOVELTIES IN BETTING.

CONCESSION AND AUCTION.

, ‘Out of the fulness of the bag the mouth speaketh,” might be an adapted motto tor bookmakers; being interpreted, it means that while money conges in freely from many directions to back many horses the fielder may be lively and bold; but when the turnover is small, and all horses save one or two are neglected, he may make up ,'his .iuund'to lose, and must cramp his betting accordingly. Not many forms of accountancy are more, interesting than that of the bookomker. TliCj successful men in this calling are hying ready-reckoners; and the; smarter a bookmaker’s gift for figures the loss severe are the blows Wjbich a punter’s coup may give him. every fielder nowadays will tell you the -same story—that the volume of betting has greatly decreased since the war began. The professional , punters—the “heads,” as they arc .colloquially/- named —‘may gamble for stakes as higli as ever;-..but.the■ pre-war betting of fivers and sovereigns shrinks niore and more —and these were the sweet' little fish which made the" bookmaker's meal. It is interesting to notice by what devices the clever bookmaker draws money into llis hag. Many of the smaller books are nowadays limited to place betting, which attracts the small money of the ring—iuere chicken-feed to a big operator. Here, especially when the odds are cramped with panicky caution, -the risks are slight, but the profits are: correspondingly low. No bookmaker grows rich by frightening; money away from him. It is only by - filling" the hag that he can profit largely. His ; .role is that of a banker, fiive liim a big turn-over, with a bigvariety of customers, and he cannot , fail: his eggs are, in too many baskets that..

! ‘'OPPORTUNITIES FOR IN;VEST&EENT,.- ’ - ; A curious crowd is usually to be found round such a bookmaker t fis “.Hick” (Gilbert, .who, .at ' every , race lusting, is seen, throwing out some novel “opportunity for investment,” . The specialities of the Gilbert hook are the I .concession bet and the auction, and tile figures which its owner: quotes are ama,zing. He courts attack from the punters." “trails bis coat,” so to .speak, and-rseldouv sees a race start without holding some public money on every horse in it. _ ‘The “auction bet” is simple to listen to. ' The bookmaker opens a horse at (say) fours; runs its' price to' fives,, sixes, sevens,, eights, all in a few seconds, ‘and swiftly is snapped up for -as much money as he chooses to offer at, the price long enough to tempt the backer. Then he runs his price, on the ; similar ascending scale, against th'> next horse on the card, and so -through the list. He is never a certain winner, but . his betting being “all round,” he is,‘insured against crushing loss. Gilbert himself is as fra”’' ■ <’" T” please about this system. He. follows it b'eeause Tt bays ■ him and r o.ui '!s that he curtails its risks as, far as is legitimately possible. “When 1 find the auction-running badly against me,” he says, “I don’t keep it going too Jon-: "When the auction is running my way, I’H keep it up a while.” . This; bookmaker gives you an insight into the formulas of his craft. He carries' a ledger .in his head. Suppose he, stands to pay out £6OO. if. Polycrates - wins, and there is a total of £3OO in his bag, he calls this “an even-money, book” as far as Polycratos is concerned. “Because,” says lie, “if that horse wins, I only have to find £3OO against the: public’s £3OO that 1 hold.” With £3OO in the hag, and £ ICO to pay out if First Principle wink; then IKtbs book about First, Principle is “3 to 1 on”- for the bookmaker, because, he: has the public’s £3OO, against? a possible i£loo of his own., . - Thus there are other well-hacked horses which will he “6 to 1 on,” “8 to 1 on,”, and so forth, until before long you come to the horses on which a sure profit (smaller or gfeater! is to be: made, with no gambling risk wat- ■ ever. ■ ■ These are the horses on which tho , , bookmaker lives- putting their chances against those of the more heavily “It is always ■ the field against the favorite,” says Gilbert, “and in a year’s, racing, - with free betting, the field wins.”

, MATHEMATICAL TABLES. One .can-readily see that if the-book-maker, on'top, many horses, lie will go to the wall. Hence the value of quick reckoning." Sometimes a bookmaker does his own ejaculations, soifietimes he leaves this to his clerk. Pro- • bably there are few if any others who do what 1 this particular bookmaker does. He has reduced to printed form a number of arithmetical tables, giving Him multipliers by which, in an instant, he can decide whether liis “auction” is still safe or has become dangerous. These tables, containing what L niversify mathematicians call “coefficients, he has learned by heart! . • Here are a couple of startlers. “When Lady Anzac beat Giru a,t Rosehill, my auction bet against her was £3OO to 3. Powdal won a race (1 forget where), starting favorite at 2 to 1. J .laid £3OO to £3. and £2OO to £lO, I fancy I lost on that race.” ‘‘Concession betting” is another product of the times, and will be a rival * -to fthe tote. The bookmaker hots a price against the horse, with the cimcession that' “if he comes second f or third you get your money hack.” The -v,6dds which ai;e laid are appreciably blower than those current in the ring at > the moment, but on almost any race day yojt can see how- they tempt b-lex-ers to invest on this or that horse which has only a modest chance. ’l'he Gilbert boo. kis said to he the inventor of this system in Australia. Sometimes it loses badly, as when the Fortune Hunter ran second to Chantemerle at Rosehill recently, and the - money laid on the beaten horse had to be given back.

BIG FIGURES. “On one Sydney Cup,” says Gilbert. “I paid back £ISOO in concessions,, and still made a big profit on the race. His records, show £9OO to £IOO ‘ concession bet” laid to r l ' biggest punters about the second horse, and £SOO to £IOO to another iiiu third. The two hundreds were given back, but so many other H-di were in the net —chasing unplaced horses-—that the face was still profitable to the hook. The figures make you gulp. . • Every year before the war we hond’ed just £2B short of three-quarters ol a infllinn.- . . Every year we allow for £7OOO or £BOOO bad debts, but we get some of it back. . . On sneb-and-such a race we expect to have about £3OOO in the book. . . You begin to imagine that if a Minister’s salary were raised to £IO,OUO a year or so, some skilled bookmaker might be'induced to become Treasurer of the State of Commonwealth.