BETTING
—is one great gratification of happiness with the people of this country, who never can be said to be truly happy, unless it is blended with a chance of becoming completely miserable. It is that kind of national furor, that no laws, however penal, no restrictions, however severe, can have sufficient force to stem the torrent of popular propensity; particularly when nurtured and encouraged by the prevalent example, and personal practice, of the first and most exalted characters in the kingdom. Experience has for ages proved it a privilege implanted in the very hearts of its devotees, which can only terminate when sporting propagation ceases, and will of course continue to the end of time. Legislative dictation, and magisterial authority, may give a temporary check to games of chance at tables of public notoriety, where the most villainous depredations are in constant practice; but so long as that excitement to the true spirit of speculation, a lottery, the exhilarating power of a race, the infectious clamour of a cockpit, or the greater hobby-horse of John Bull, a boxing match, is open to all minds, and in all directions, so long will betting excite the attention, and continue to constitute the pleasing, painful anxiety of pecuniary speculation with the people of this country, (and probably of every other,) from the highest to the lowest classes of society.
Betting is the act of laying a wager, or making a deposit of money, by two persons of contrary opinions, for one to become the winner, upon the decision of some public or popular event; and that so fashionable a mode of terminating disputes may meet with but little difficulty or obstruction, bets are made with as much deliberation, and discharged by the SPORTING WORLD with as much integrity, as the most important transactions of the commercial part of society in the first city of the universe. Betting has of late years been reduced to a system, by which there are now many professors in existence, who were originally of the very lowest order; but, by an indefatigable and persevering industry at Newmarket, the cockpit, and the gaming table, have acquired princely possessions, by the unexpected honour of being admitted to princely association. Where two opponents deposit each an equal sum (whether five pounds or five hundred) upon any event whatever, it is then termed an even bet. An offer of six to four, implies the odds in direct ratio of six pounds to four, twelve to eight, sixty to forty; or in that proportion to any amount. Betting two to one, is laying ten pounds to five, twenty to ten, and so forth; one depositing exactly double the amount of his adversary's stake; three, four and five to one being regulated in the same way. The latter are all termed laying the odds, which vary according to the predominant opinions of the best judges upon the probable termination of the event; one rule being invariable, the person betting the odds (or, in other words, the larger sum against the smaller) has always the privilege of taking his choice in preference to his adversary, against which no appeal can ever be made with a decision in its favor.
Any person proposing a bet to another during the running of a horse, the fighting of a cock, or any other transaction, the party applied to, saying "done," and the proposer replying "done" also, it then becomes a confirmed bet, and cannot in sporting etiquette and honour be off, or revoked, but by mutual consent. No bet above ten pounds can be sued for and recovered in our courts of law; the payment of all losings above that sum must depend entirely upon the sporting integrity of the parties concerned.