Of all the evils connected or associated with games of chance in this country, perhaps the most vicious are those which surround the race-courses of the land—not only those extensive parks which are recognized as having a legitimate existence, but as well the country tracks where racing events are casual and sporadic. The “turf,” as we are popularly accustomed to term the race course with reference to its gambling features, implies not only the element of chance as manipulated by systematic knavery, and which will be found elsewhere fully explained, but also what is termed the legitimate sport of gentlemen, conducted as honestly as it may be and with every disposition on the part of managers and judges to give a fair test of the speed and endurance of the competing horses. Even in the latter case, it is a notorious fact that race tracks that are conducted in their official management under the highest auspices and by the most responsible individuals, are not in their actual surroundings, influences and results, less pernicious nor injurious than those which are openly in the charge of recognized swindlers and scoundrels. Even as to the great “events” which in this country are recognized and patronized, to the great misfortune of public morals, by the press and by society, governed though they may be by honorable men, and with every concerted determination for a fair and proper exhibition of honest results, it is notorious and undisputed, that these exhibitions are the harvest fields of systematized vice, and that while the judge in the stand may be immaculate, the seller of pools, the bookmaker, the touter, the tip-givers, the turf prophets and all the others who camp upon the trail of the credulous and unwary with schemes that, by methods of certainty, enrich the gambler without risk on his part, are one and all dishonest and designing scoundrels to whom the sense of honor is unknown, and whose infamous and insidious influence is one of the gravest dangers to which the morality and uprightness of the youth of our country are exposed.

The origin of horse-racing, as with that of our modern athletic sports, comes from the classic ages; but in the contests of equine speed and in the competition of personal skill or valor in the “brave days of old” there is no record of the thimble-rigging propensities which these latter days have developed. The competitions of those times were for public honor and prizes, for the encouragement of features which were essential to the public welfare and safety. In that period all free men were warriors, upon whom depended the security of life, property and national existence. The cultivation of ambition to excel in personal strength and swiftness had, therefore, a patriotic and commendable foundation; and the same as regarded the trials of speed by horses, which were for the improvement of the qualities upon which the warriors had to rely in these their main coadjutors upon the field of battle. All this had nothing in common with the turf as we recognize and realize it to-day. For this we have to look back to our mother, England, from whom it was an inheritance of shame whose evil influence has expanded like the upas tree ever since it first took a root in our land. In England, while it has been customary for turf enthusiasts to trace the history of their trade from about the reign of Charles I., the fact is that it was not really till the reign of George II. that the “turf,” as property understood, became a recognized entity. Prior to that time there had been plenty of horse-racing, in which gentlemen rode their own horses, and which was almost entirely free from the vicious concomitants which have later surrounded, characterized and dominated the race track. The leading meetings in England are the Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot, York, Doncaster and Goodwood. It is at Epsom that “the Derby,” an event of interest to the whole sporting world, is run. This is known as the Cockneys’ Holiday, and has been the subject of many an exemplification of the highest attainments of the art of word painting. Indeed the interest attaching to the vast and heterogeneous throng is to many greater than that which belongs to the race itself, every element between the palace and the poor-house being there represented. Ascot is favored frequently by the presence of royalty, and is on this account always the scene of a brilliant display by the aristocracy. Goodwood is also an aristocratic meeting, representative of the south of England and distinguished by the great value of the prizes offered for competition. The distinguishing feature at Doncaster is the race for the St. Leger stakes, which rivals the Derby in sporting importance; and it has been claimed that upon these two events not less than twenty-five per cent. of the whole English population are bettors, either risking their money on the tracks or at the pool rooms, which in every town throughout the country sell chances upon the results.

It is a somewhat remarkable fact that of late years while, in England, the most energetic efforts have been made, and with good success, to keep the thimble-riggers and blacklegs off the track, this fraternity, outside the track, in the adjacent hotels, and in other outside towns where interest in the result centers, carries on its audacious trade with increasing extent and profit, while to-day, throughout Great Britain, the mania for gambling upon the results of contests upon the turf is more wide-spread and deep-rooted than ever before. The harm resulting to public morals is incalculable, and will possibly more than offset the efforts for good of the ministers of religion. There is not a race meeting after which we do not hear of the downfall of some “plunger,” who in “legitimate” betting has risked his all upon the “wrong horse,” bringing ruin and disgrace too often upon the innocent wife and family, and opening up the alternative of crime, dishonor or suicide. Yet these are but the least of the injurious influences of gambling upon these race meetings. They are only heard of by reason of the conspicuous extent of the individual losses, or the prominence of the persons thus involved in the ruinous consequences of the national vice. Far more serious, more deplorable and more demoralizing are the results upon the infinite number of the “smaller fry,” who submit themselves as easy victims to the skillful swindler who runs the “speculation list” or the pool-room, whose specious but delusive allurements send the honest hand of many a youth surreptitiously into his employer’s cash-drawer, to be drawn forth forever tainted with dishonor; and merely in order that the ill-gotten gains of the experienced swindler may be enlarged. Round about all such tracks, too, may be seen the gaming devices of every description, and all the nefarious instrumentalities by means of which the honest man is deluded of his earnings for the benefit of systematic knavery. And yet the race-track is the “national sport” of England; to it, and all its contaminating, crime-producing, society-wrecking and soul-destroying influence, royalty lends its condescension, and princes and peers their active countenance and aid; bishops and churchmen, members of Parliament and professional men, participate and applaud; while even those in charge of the little children afford them special holidays in order that their young minds may be subjected to impressions which, in the years of their older youth will make them the easy prey of the agents of this monster vice. It is in the glitter and glamour of all its brilliant external attributes that England finds the pride with which she claims the turf as her peculiar national institution; it is in the ruined reputation, the blasted life, the broken heart, the wreck of happiness, the loss of honor and the headlong course to crime, which are to be traced by the tears of women and the wails of children, in the blighted homes throughout the land, that we recognize in the turf and all that pertains to it, England’s national curse, that must surely sooner or later invite and evoke a national retribution.

The details of the various rascalities practiced in connection with the “turf” being common to all countries, we shall deal with these features of the English national sport, at the close of this chapter, in a general explanation of the methods which affect the results of all race meetings, and which add strength to the steel meshes of the net in which the innocent and confiding bettor is certain to become involved.

It is to be said to the honor and credit of the Puritan and Pilgrim settlers of New England, that they had a strong antipathy to every form of vice, and in their interdict against the evils which they had left England to escape, horse-racing was especially included. On the other hand the early settlements of the Old Dominion, (which originally included Kentucky), and of Carolina, were of aristocratic stock, retired army officers, the younger sons of gentlemen, etc., and as the early conditions that prevailed precluded many of the ordinary sports, horse-racing, generally in the form of the steeple-chase, was encouraged. This was not, however, the “turf,” in America, but it was the means of affording a nursery for the splendid animals which have made the American turf famous for the wonderful achievements in time and speed of its horses. In those early days travel in the South was almost altogether by saddle horses, and hence the necessity for developing those peculiar qualities in the horses used, as made them valuable for racing purposes. The stock was recruited from the best blood, imported from England, and as it was a peculiar mark of social distinction, where all men ride, to be well mounted, great care was taken in cultivating and improving the breeding of horses. Yearly meetings for running races became the custom; but at these affairs there were no bookmakers nor blacklegs, and the betting was generally of that perfunctory character which usually exists where the competing parties are interested rather in the results than in the stakes. As the country developed, the new state of Kentucky, with its splendid climate, its crystal streams and its unequalled grasses, became distinctively the home of fine horses, which up to the present day even, she has continued to supply to the racing world.

The trotting race had its origin in New York and took its peculiarity from the general use of the light wagon for road traveling. In this way the only possible method of testing speed was the “pace” or “trot,” and for many years in the Northeastern States the trotting meeting was the recognized form of sport, the practice becoming general and being the invariable accompaniment of every county fair. The earliest recorded organized trotting meeting of which there is any specific record is of date of 1818. The fastest time for fifty miles was recorded in favor of Spangle at Union Course, Long Island, Oct. 15, 1855. The best time for two miles under saddle was at Fashion Course, Long Island, July 1, 1863, by George M. Patchen. We mention these dates to show that as long as thirty-five years ago there were important meetings of the turf, and also to point out the fact that the public sense of humanity, growing with the increasing refinement of the country, has reduced these trials of speed generally to one-mile contests, and frequently to the half-mile.

Trotting races began to assume an aspect of national importance shortly after the war, and the first National Trotting Association was organized in February, 1870, under the name of the “National Association for the Promotion of the Interests of the Trotting Turf,” which in 1878, at a congress of members, was changed to that of “National Trotting Association.” It is a curious fact that the origin of the National Association arose in the abuses which invariably follow the practice of racing for money or of betting on unknown results. There had been complaints all over the country of crooked work on the race tracks—of “blind” horses being entered under assumed names to gull unsuspicious victims; of jockeys who “pulled” the winner so as to make him the loser; of improper decisions by judges, and of a thousand and one things in the way of serious and petty crookedness on the leading race tracks. ItIt became generally recognized that the confidence of the public in the integrity of racing contests in America was becoming exhausted and that racing was falling into contempt as well as falling off in its profits. Organization was originally effected in response to a circular sent out by the Narragansett Park Association, of Providence, R. I., in 1869. It proposed the formation of a central body for general control, and the establishment of a code of rules and penalties for the government of all tracks as the most effective means of correcting existing abuses and elevating the standard of honor and fair play, and the character of the American Trotting Turf. The results were gratifying so far as those objects were concerned, though it is a serious question whether the country would not have been greatly the gainer had the race-courses and their attending evils been allowed to extinguish themselves by the very excesses which were at that time making them offensive and contemptible. However, the organization was effected as stated, officers elected and, a code of laws adopted, under which the chief of the evils complained of disappeared from the official protection of the tracks, though they still continue under more insidious and less offensively unscrupulous methods. The membership of this association consists of the representative of a trotting course. In order to show the extraordinary growth of this mania for speculating upon the chances of the horse-race we may state that, commencing with 51 in 1870, in 1886 there were 273 courses represented in the National Association, while now there are 317, and in the American Association 419—in all 736. The government of the National Association is effected through the medium of a Board of Appeals consisting of five District Boards and a Board of Review, each of the former being entitled to three members of the general board, giving it thus fifteen members in addition to the President and Vice-presidents who are ex-officio members. The Board of Review is composed of a chairman appointed by the President from each of the five districts, and this Board has and exercises supreme authority and jurisdiction, being a final court of resort which decides all appeals from the decisions of the District Boards. The objects set forth on behalf of the association are the improvement of the breed and the development of horses by promotion of the interests of the American Trotting Turf; the prevention, detection and punishment of frauds thereon, and uniformity in the government and rules of trotting and pacing.

In 1887, a number of Western tracks separated from the original body and formed the “American Trotting Association,” with objects precisely similar, and methods not materially differing. In fact, many parties are represented in both Associations, as a matter of policy, and to ensure the enforcement of rules and penalties upon all courses.

Running races have of late very largely supplanted trotting races in public favor, for the reason that they offer to the public a more vivid and intense excitement, and to bettors a speedier settlement of their concern about the result. Five persons will attend, it is said, a running race, where one will attend a trotting race.

To enumerate the “principal courses” would be a task that would take space with little profit, but we can gather some idea of the extent of opportunities that are open to the sharks that swim the sea of speculation in races throughout the Union, when we say that at the great Suburban race, Sheepshead Bay, N. Y., in 1890, there were present not less than twenty thousand persons according to gate receipts; while at Washington Park, Chicago, thirty-four thousand people have been counted on important occasions. And these, let it be remembered, do not constitute a tithe of the actual number of the eager victims of the gamblers of the turf. In all our leading cities to-day are pool-rooms, where may be seen excited crowds who by the use of the telegraph wire, on the same principle as quotations are announced on the board of trade, follow the races from start to finish with as much accuracy as if they were at the tracks, and in this way the prey of the gambler is increased without limit, and his operations made to permeate near and remotely into society that otherwise would never have sought nor had the opportunity of seeking the contact.

If reckless indulgence in games of chance of every description, in lottery enterprises, in the board of trade, and in the pool-room, can be, as it is, appropriately denominated a “national vice,” that appellation belongs with especial emphasis to the gambling of the race-track. This is true, probably, mainly because of the fatal facility with which contact is there had with the evil influence that draws men and boys, aye, even women and girls, into its deadly toils. The race-track is governed by presumably respectable persons. It has the convincing support of the press, universally, to sustain its claims to harmlessness. Church members and people of recognized reputable position, bankers, merchants and professional men, are openly seen “making their bets,” in the face of thousands of their fellow citizens. Women surrender to the glamour of its fascinations, and may be seen in numbers, any day on any grand stand, “backing” their favorite in the race. In the face of such example as this, then, how can we expect that the youth of the land shall escape? Already they are sufficiently imbued in their personal and business ambition with the spirit of speculation that pervades the nation, and in the feverish haste to get rich suddenly are ready to turn to any resort that may seem to offer them the opportunity of making large winnings for a small investment. True, the youth may have been warned by a pious mother or a prudent father that gambling is a vice, and one of the most dangerous and pernicious of all that threaten the interests, the welfare and even the safety of society. But when the young man sees the pillar of the church, or the refined lady leader of polite society, who mayhap occupies the front pew in the church which he attends, openly patronizing gambling, is it any cause for wonder that he concludes the good counsel which he brought from home was merely a mistake, and that there’s “no harm in it” after all? And once in the circle of that treacherous maelstrom of vice, at first imperceptibly to himself and in slow and apparently safe revolutions, he is gradually but irresistibly drawn to the fatal gulf, in which character, integrity, hope, and the best opportunities of life are remorselessly swallowed up.

Every bet that is made upon a race-course is emphatically and indisputably participation in the commonest kind of a lottery—is gambling pure and simple; and if it has been found necessary by Congress, acting upon the advice of the National Executive, to legislate against the existence of the incorporated lotteries that exist by State authority, why is it not equally the duty of Congress to declare all betting unlawful? This is not a new proposition. Under existing law the illegality of gambling by betting is recognized in the refusal of the courts to enforce debts or contracts incurred under a bet. If the principle were logically carried out, it would afford a safeguard to society which, as yet, moral sentiment appears to have been unable to extend. But what moral restraints, the teaching of parents and the exhortations of the clergy, have failed to achieve, may be accomplished by what this book contains: by tearing away the mask of harmless sport from the death’s-head that grins behind it, and exposing, in all its hideous nakedness, not the moral wrong that there is in the vice of gambling by betting, but the personal rascality toward the individual, the plain and evident object of robbery that is involved in all the schemes of the book-maker, the pool-seller, and every other person who makes either a profession or a systematic practice of offering bets upon the results of the race-track. While our young men may be eager to get rich by the easiest means, we have much confidence in the hard common sense that is characteristic of every American youth, before the natural acuteness of his intellect and spirit of self-preservation have been insensibly dulled by the insidious and subtle approaches of a danger that draws near him with a smiling countenance. With, however, an ample fore-knowledge of what those advances mean in reality, with pride and apprehension both on the alert, every young man will firmly refuse to allow himself to be deliberately gulled, and will turn his back in contempt upon the pickpockets of the pool-room and the race-track.

We have already alluded to the pool room as an accessory to gambling at the track. This is one of the most nefarious of all the modern instruments of evil, and ought to be summarily abolished by specific law in every State in the Union. Its worst feature, perhaps—in addition to the fact that it is a skin game played to catch “suckers,” as the gamblers term their latest dupes—is that it seeks out and offers opportunity to a class of citizens who could never be reached by these machinations in any other way. Clerks, students, apprentices, and such, would in all probability never have the time nor the means to squander in a trip from New York to Sheepshead Bay, to witness a horse race. The pool-room brings the race to him. He can visit them at his noon hour or in the idle hours of his evening rest. Here he is deluded into the belief that a small investment will bring a rich return, and is easily wheedled by a “capper” into investing his small hoard on “tips” that he is assured are certain to win. Of course he loses, and to retrieve his loss will probably go to his employers’ funds to get the means to continue his play. And so from bad to worse till exposure and ruin overtake him.

Pool rooms are conducted upon the science of exactness, not only as to the promptness and accuracy of the reports upon the blackboard, but also with regard to the certainty that the pool seller will be the only one in the room who will be a sure and solid winner each time. The pool board displays the whole course of the race, in its smallest details. It shows when the horses are “off,” which one is “in the lead;” which “second” and which “third;” how they stand at the “quarter,” the “half,” the “three quarter,” and their positions down the “stretch,” and within ten seconds after the “finish,” will display which horse was winner, and which took second and which third place. Previous to the race the board has reliable and definite information of the state of the track, whether “fast” or muddy; gives the name of the jockey who is to mount each horse, the weights and all information necessary to the man who governs his bets by what he considers the most reasonable chance to win.

The pool-seller works his gambling racket on what he calls the percentage principle. In all pools sold by auction, he deducts a certain sum, generally 5 to 15 per cent., from the amount in the pool, and pays the balance to the winner. The book maker arranges his book with reference to the “odds” for or against; that is, the individualindividual chances of each horse upon the information which he has available, and which if he be at all expert in the business will enable him to insure his personal success every time, except only in the case where all the patrons buy the same horse and that horse should be the winner a—contingency that is, however, not as one to one hundred, and about as liable to happen as that the sucker who has bought on a “cinch tip” will win the pot.

It may be interesting for many who have no knowledge of pool room practices, and will better illustrate the devices by which the “sucker” is snared, to have a few illustrations of actual proceedings that have transpired. Here, for instance, is what is called a “book” taken from the blackboard at the Imperial pool rooms, Chicago, June 12, 1890:

PURSE $400—WEST SIDE TRACK, CHICAGO.
First Race, Maidens, Seven Furlongs.
20	Emma McDowell	105	1
10	Dora Morne	105	1
10	Jack Staff	106	1
50	Norwood	107	1
40	Flora McDonald	98	1
10	Jennie Gronnod	105	1
10	John Clarkson	103	1
3	Corticelli	110	1
20	Imogene	105	2
30	Council Platt	100	5
2	Later On	106	1
5	Jack Batcheler	107	1
10	Tall Bull	110	1
20	Arizone	105	5
50	Miss Longford	105	1
10	Jasper	107	1
15	Rock	111	2
315			27

In explanation it is to be observed that the bookmaker never bets in favor of any horse. He invariably offers odds against every flyer on the programme. The first column of figures gives the odds offered; the second the weight carried by each horse, and the last the figure against which odds are offered. For instance, the first line means that the bookmaker offers twenty to one against Emma McDowell. Now, if this horse should win, the bookmaker would pay out $20, and having won all the other bets he would still be the winner, because he would receive $26 against the loss of $20. It will be observed that on Later On he only lays odds of two to one, and on Corticelli three to one. These are the favorites—horses which offer tolerably certain chances of being winner, and on which the book maker will take the smallest possible limit of chance. The favorite won the race and the book maker has to pay the winner $2, so that he is the winner by $25, counting out of the pool of $27, $2—$1 of which was his stake and the other that which had to be returned to the winner. If the horse Norwood had won the book maker would have been out $25. But no such contingencies are to be dreaded by the gentleman who presides over the pools. He is kept posted from sources that are always inside and unquestionable, and in offering the heavy odds knows that he runs no risk. This computation of winnings is based on the supposition that only one bet at the figure of $1 named was made, but the probability is that instead of this being the case the actual winnings may be safely estimated at $2,500 instead of $25. In this business an important figure is the “tout,” who, while actually the bookmaker’s agent, assumes the role of a gentleman who, by some means or other, has procured a “cinch tip” (meaning a sure thing), but is unfortunately short of money. “Now,” he will confidentially inform the sucker, “give me $10 to bet on Norwood, and we’ll divide the pot.” The money is produced, and, of course, goes to swell the book maker’s wad. These touts always induce their victim to bet on the “short horses”—that is, the horses against which the heaviest odds are laid, for two reasons. First, because the money more certainly goes where he is employed to steer it, and second, because in the rare and unprecedented event of the tail-ender on the blackboard becoming the winner on the track, the tout’s share of the winning will be so much larger. The tout will ply his vocation so industriously that on a board like the above he will have given a “tip” and got a bet laid on nearly every horse on the board. In this way he is almost certain to have one winner out of the lot and when the latter receives his stake the tout says, “There, didn’t I give you a straight tip!” He gets a liberal share, and his reputation for inside information is spread among the crowd, and his chances of increasing his victims in succeeding races are immensely increased. As for the losers, no one pays any attention to them. Even the tout won’t take the trouble to condole with them, and realizing that the mob of a gambling room do most heartily despise a “kicker,” they will probably sneak away to kick themselves in private. To illustrate the wisdom of the tout in always deluding his dupes to bet on the “short horse,” it may be mentioned that once in a great while, through some influence not comprehended by the book maker and his crowd of sharpers, the “short horse” will be a winner. This generally happens when the horse has been managed by some professional who, having discovered his qualities, has played a game on his brother gamblers, kept his pacer’s capacity a careful secret, probably has had him “pulled” by the jockey to make a bad record in a preceding race, so that he can gather in heavy odds in the event in which he intends to show his hand; and so the book maker becomes a victim in the game of “diamond cut diamond,” and the tout is made happy by a liberal share in the chance hit. We say “chance” hit because the tout never gives an honest tip, and if he really had the knowledge of the “short horse’s” prowess he would have informed his patron, the book maker, and the long odds would never have been given. As an instance of this kind of luck it may be stated that recently during a St. Louis meeting, at Roche’s pool-room in that city, a book was made in which the odds against a certain horse were laid at 100 to 1. A tout persuaded a man from North Missouri to let him have $50 to bet on the race. The tout bet 100 to 1 on the horse, and to his own astonishment, the amazement of the book maker, and of everyone else, his horse won the race, the result being that the book maker lost $5,000, while the tout received a bonus of $2,000 of the money.

This board enables you to have an opportunity to select a winner in three different races. The board is arranged as by this diagram: