Part 16

This plan, often since adopted, of sending different horses for wins and places to the different applicants for tips, was in my opinion quite a stroke of genius; the "fine art" of tipping indeed.

Such reminiscences might be multiplied. I was at one time brought into contact with several adventurers of similar kidney to those described, and there are no doubt aged turfites who could supplement what I have said. Previous even to the period I have been attempting to illustrate there was being published a regular racing circular, the precursor of the Lockets, Judexes, and Walmsleys of a later period, whilst newspaper tipping, especially in the columns of certain of the London weekly newspapers, was greatly extended; in not a few of them a "real poet" gushed forth his prophetic lore, and, as has been stated already, not a few of the poetic predictions perpetrated some fifty years ago were exceedingly felicitous in their diction, considering the sometimes very uncouth matter that had of necessity to be dealt with. I remember reading upon one occasion a collection of such poems in a Bow Street tavern (it was kept, I think, by Baron Nicholson), and of being struck with the halting lines and bald phraseology of three or four of the Seven Dials sort, that used at one time to be hawked round the public-houses at which sporting men were wont to congregate. One sample of the doggerel--I am not speaking now of the graceful contributions published by Bell's Life or The Sunday Times, but of the Cattnach kind, written for recital in public-houses, one of which I well remember--proved a fortunate tip, as it wound up with an excellent prophecy:

All who desire to quench their very great thirst Must back my bright fancy, brave Pyrrhus the First.

Another of the kind, after dealing with all the animals likely to start for the race (more than a dozen), pronounced boldly in favour of the horse that won, winding up his narrative with the following rather clumsy lines:

Now this fair chance is given, play you your cards right well, Take my advice--down with your dibs on the bold Dayrell.

I am quoting these lines from memory, and another concluding couplet dwells in my remembrance:

Coldrenick! Coldrenick! the crowd loudly cry, But Attila's the animal that wins, in my eye.

afterwards altered by "the poet" to:

Coldrenick! Coldrenick! the crowd loudly shout, But to-day I set down as Attila's day out.

In respect of the art of really "poetical" tipping, there are few who know how very difficult it is to render the matter presentable; the names to be introduced are sometimes not amenable to the treatment of the poet, no matter how heartily he enters on his task. As one gentleman said to the writer, "to work all these probable starters into readable rhymes, far less to clothe them with some degree of poetic fancy, would need a couple of Tennysons, four Brownings, and half a score each of Swinburnes and Buchanans rolled into one, and even then the product of the lot united might not seem to the editor all it ought to be."

Nowadays every newspaper of importance has to furnish a daily modicum of sporting intelligence, which proprietors find to be a costly item in the ever increasing sum of their expenditure. But it is a circumstance that cannot be helped; there is in reality more interest taken in the handicaps for the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire by five-sixths of the readers of the daily papers than there is in all the other items of news added together; indeed, it is not going too far to affirm that two or three of the daily newspapers are indebted for the larger portion of their sales to the fact of their giving every morning a detailed programme for the races of the day, as well as other sporting intelligence. Excellent information of its kind is purveyed by the members of the sporting press, who contribute to these journals; but the tips given are, except to the merest novices, of little use, as veteran bettors can, by the aid of their Ruff or McCall, select horses for themselves.

In addition to the racing news contained in the ordinary run of newspapers, there are three daily journals published all the year round which are solely devoted to sporting news, and these papers deal of course in "tips," and some of them afford a place in their columns to a full score of the daily increasing army of vaticinators; and yet, as must be patent to those who devote time and attention to the study of such matters, no betting man could possibly make a fortune, or even earn a living, by abjectly following either or all of the honest newspaper tipsters referred to.

It is amusing to note how some of the more "screeching" of the newspapers comport themselves. When one of them, for instance, after a period of six or seven weeks, becomes some day so fortunate as to select three or four horses that win as many races, it shouts out next day in loud tones so that all may have news of its prescience--a supremely Irish mode of telling readers that to follow its tips would be ruinous. One day's luck out of twenty or thirty simply means to backers "fell despair," and much of it. There is (or was lately) a tipster who is never done sounding his own praises; "as I predicted, Chance did the trick easily," "my selection Accident in a walk," "I gave two for such and such a race, and my first selection Happy-go-lucky literally romped in."

But what of that, when backers of the two lost their money, the romping in horse starting at odds of 3 to 1 on him! Let us suppose that some sanguine speculator had risked a five-pound note on each selection (because when two horses are selected it is necessary to back both in case of missing the winner), the result would have been a loss of £5 on No. 2 and a gain of £1 13s. on No. 1, showing a balance to the bad of £3 7s. But, notwithstanding, the tipster in question crowed over this feat of tipping, just as a bantam cock does when he is surveying the half-dozen inmates of his harem.

These details will not probably be pleasant to the gentlemen of the sporting press; but there are among them several who have no occasion to assume that my remarks are personal, because they are persons possessed of knowledge, who announce their selections in a modest manner, and give good reasons for their faith; but for the kind of tipster who told his readers not only that Pioneer would win the race for the City and Suburban Handicap, but would do easily, I have but scanty respect. That tipster must surely be a green hand at the business! Why did he not add that if the horse did not win easily he would eat him? "Will win," instead of "may win," is a mistake in tipping often committed by some even of the veteran press tipsters.

Pressmen who review past races and prophesy on future events are compelled, like jockeys, "to ride to order"; in plain language, they must found their tips on the public form of the horses commented upon. It is not any part of their work to "guess" that any particular horse will win a race; hence it is that the professional prophets are now and again completely "floored" by the victory of an animal they dared not even assume to have been possessed of a chance. It is always on the cards that an outsider may win.

There are every day busily at work at the present time an army of over two hundred and fifty advertising tipsters--pure adventurers, recruited from all sorts and conditions of men. The writer took pains, three or four years ago, to ascertain, by personally interviewing a number of them, what manner of men they were. His idea of the kind of persons he had supposed them to be was at once corroborated, as the first of them with whom he could obtain an interview he immediately recognised as a bookmaker who had welshed him at Ascot two years before; another of the fraternity was identified by a friend as a "swell cabman," who used to have a lucrative connection in the City, his customers being chiefly stockbrokers and bankers' clerks; but more surprising than either of these was the discovery that among the motley crowd, and evidently, from the fact of two clerks in an outer office being busily engaged in filling up telegraphic forms, doing a roaring trade, there was a younger son of a very well known and wealthy London citizen, who, having failed at the University, and "gone to the bad" in business, had taken to tipping.

Well do I remember reading one morning in The Standard that Bill Jones, one of "the ruins" bookmakers, had been sent for ten days to prison as a rogue and vagabond for betting, the alderman who passed the sentence being the uncle of the tipster to whom I have been alluding!

Could a census be taken of these prophets, embracing their antecedents, it would be found that not a few of them were persons who had lost money in backing horses or in laying the odds against their chances, reminding us of the celebrated definition of the critics being "men who have failed in literature and art."

As has been remarked in the course of the foregoing observations, the art of tipping is now a business over which no disguise is thrown, although an occasional advertisement still crops up in the old style. One or two of the present-day tipsters correspond with "gentlemen only," but on being communicated with, these persons do not seem particularly anxious to restrict the number of their clients; what they really want is "a remittance." At the present time there are tipsters who carry on business in different fashions; some ask for a fee that will cover a week's work, others seek an all-day remittance, whilst not a few deal in single-horse wires or "paddock snips," as they designate their information. There are also tipsters who ask only to be paid by results. "Put one shilling on each of the horses I select for you to back, and if one wins, remit me the odds obtained," indicates the mode of doing business adopted by such prophets.

As a matter of course, the tipsters of the time are ever varying their names and addresses. When they make a series of hits under one designation they trade on that as long as they can, but when business begins to decrease because their tips fail to disclose winners, then a change of locality and another name gives chances of renewed good fortune. Thus the man who was "A. 1." a month ago is now figuring as "X. Y. 3.," whose tips, "privately given," made the fortunes of several gentlemen two years ago, "so that I" (that is "X. Y. 3.") "am induced to allow the general public to participate in my information." About the period of the Derby in each year I take stock of the tipsters' advertisements, and have found, as a general rule, that only about thirty per cent. of those who advertised in the previous year remain in the field--the others having either retired or changed their names and addresses.

The class of tipsters of whom I have been writing earn a great deal of money, but many of them spend it recklessly, never thinking that they may be overtaken by the proverbial rainy day. Judging from the vast number of telegrams which are despatched on busy race-days, two or three thousand pounds a week must reach these tipsters, the majority of whom make it a rule, I fancy, to incur no expense for information, although some among them are always boasting of their staff of highly-paid assistants. These men take the tips given in the morning newspapers and retail them to the fools who trust them for a shilling, or perhaps half-a-crown, whilst the simpletons who purchase the information could obtain it for one penny, and all the news, political and social, as well!

Of the fools who are born in every minute of the day and night, a very great number deal with the advertising tipsters to their ultimate loss. It is only right, however, to let it be known that there are a few honourable men among the blacklegs who take much personal trouble and incur considerable expense in obtaining information of a reliable kind for those who trust them. But these men fail to make backing pay; they no doubt experience runs of luck, but even with runs of luck the balance at the close of the year is sure to be on the wrong side of the account.

The proprietors of several weekly racing periodicals at present published, not satisfied seemingly with the sales of fifty or sixty thousand copies which they say their papers attain, send out daily tips by telegraph, or pen nightly letters to all who will pay the requisite fee, and according to their own accounts of what they achieve their success as tipsters is enormous; but it may be fairly stated on behalf of the gentlemen who cater sporting news for the daily press, that considering the difficulties incidental to the formulating of their prophetic work, they do wonderfully well, although it has been often stated against them, as a matter of reproach, that they "follow the money"--in other words, tip those horses which are being or are likely to be heavily backed.

MODERN BETTING ILLUSTRATED AND EXPLAINED.

Having received the selection of his tipster, or having become enamoured of a horse selected by himself, the bettor proceeds to his club or other rendezvous where he knows he will find a bookmaker ready to lay the odds against the horse of his choice.

In this he finds no difficulty. In large towns and cities, and in smaller seats of population also, there are persons whose business it is to accommodate such customers. Bookmakers and backers have many ways of coming together; they meet at divers times and seasons and in divers places as a matter of course, and during those months when there is little or no horse-racing they keep up acquaintance with each other at billiard matches and in their clubs; indeed, sporting events of some kind on which "a nice little bit of betting" may crop up are always on the tapis, whilst during the winter season there are usually a score or so of steeple-chase meetings which are provocative of speculation in bookmaking and betting circles. The great coursing meetings which take place in the season when racing is pretty much at a standstill also give rise to a vast amount of betting, of which very little is known, because it is not published from day to day.

The enormous extent to which betting on horse-racing goes on all the year round is known to those only who make the matter a special study. It has been computed by persons who should know that not less than five thousand bookmakers are daily engaged throughout the United Kingdom in laying the odds against horses to stakes ranging from sixpence to perhaps, on some occasions, as much as five hundred or even a thousand pounds. Taking it, for illustrative purposes, that each layer of the odds deals only with a hundred customers, it becomes obvious that there must be at least five hundred thousand persons engaged in betting. The exact number, however, could it be ascertained, would doubtless prove much in excess of these figures. Were it said that at present there are over a million persons who take an interest in horse-racing or in some of the other sports and pastimes of the period to the extent of backing their opinions by a bet, it would not probably be an exaggeration.