The Colonel never got over that incident, and while he won a big bet on his own horse, he always claimed that Maxim & Gay had ruined the betting odds for him and that but for the vigilance of our clockers his winnings would have been twice as large. This was true, and time and again we ruined the price for many another owner who thought he was going to get away with something on the sly.
Bookmakers as a rule are very much self-satisfied about their knowledge of the mathematics of the game. In order to show them that they didn't know all about it, the Maxim & Gay Company inserted an advertisement one day reading substantially as follows:
YOU PAY US $5
WE REFUND $6
If the Horse We Name as
THE ONE BEST BET
To-day Does Not Win, We Will Not
Only Refund Our $5 Fee, Which Is
Paid Us for the Information, but Will
Pay Each Client an EXTRA DOLLAR
By Way of Forfeit.
Pay Us $5 To-day for Our One Best
Bet, and if the Horse Does Not Win
We Will Pay You $6 To-morrow.
MAXIM & GAY CO.
Our receipts that day were approximately $5,000. The horse did not win. We refunded $6,000 next day, and netted a considerable sum of money on the operation.
It happened to be a two-horse race. Our horse was at odds of 1 to 6 in the betting, that is to say, the bookmakers laid only one dollar against every six bet by the public. The other horse ruled at odds of 5 to 1, meaning that here the bookmakers laid five dollars against the public's one.
The Maxim & Gay Company sent to the track $1,000 out of the $5,000 paid in by its customers and wagered the $1,000 on the contending horse at odds of 5 to 1, drawing down $4,000 in winnings. From this money it paid its clients the thousand-dollar forfeit, netting $4,000 on the operation, after of course returning to them their own $5,000.
Had the 1 to 6 shot won, the clients who had received the winning tip would have been happy, while the Maxim & Gay Company would not have been compelled to refund any money and would have been ahead $4,000 on the operation, the $1,000 wagered and in that event lost in the betting ring on the other horse being subtracted from the $5,000 paid in by its customers. No matter which horse won our gain was sure to be $4,000 and we had here the ideal of a "sure thing."
It was a case of "taking candy from a baby"; and yet many of the wise bookmakers could not at first figure it out. Nearly all of them subscribed for the information. As for the public, they did not seem to catch on at all.
BETTING THE PUBLIC'S MONEY AT GREAT PROFIT
The Eastern racing season was about to close and it was decided to remove the entire force of clerks to New Orleans for the Winter and there to depart from the usual practice of selling tips only, and to bet the money of the American public on the horses at the race-track in whatever sums they wished to send. The company employed Sol Lichtenstein, then the most noted bookmaker on the American turf, to bet the money, and made him part of the organization, giving him an interest in the profits.