Every now and again "plungers," as they are called in the slang of the period, make their appearance in the betting rings and carry on their betting with an enormous flourish of trumpets. The financial feats which they perform in backing horses are frequently chronicled by the sporting press, and thus it is we learn that "Mr. Blank" ("the famous plunger" of the period) "had another series of fortune-yielding innings yesterday, having landed over sixteen hundred pounds on the day's racing."
Such good fortune is, however, phenomenal and seldom lasts long; besides, no one takes the trouble to chronicle the many bad days which Mr. Blank is fated to encounter, the outcome of which leads, as a matter of course, to the usual finale. Beginning on the plan of dealing for ready money dealings only, the plunger ultimately does a large business on the usual credit terms of settlement every Monday, and in the course of a few months the racing public learn that the great man has come to grief, and is offering a composition of five shillings in the pound, in order to lighten his liabilities. So it is in time with all who tread the same path, even with those of them who come from the other side of the Atlantic to break the English betting ring, and who for a season look as if they would prove successful.
Many schemes are resorted to by the bigger class of betting men to obtain information. Jockeys are pumped, trainers are interviewed, stablemen are bribed with the view of enabling the plunger to land a big bet or two at every meeting. There are men, of course, who would scorn to take a vulgar money bribe, but who do not scruple to receive a case or two of champagne, or a ten-gallon cask of whisky, nor are they very angry when some energetic person sends their wife a diamond ring or their daughter a gold watch. Upon one occasion while visiting a training establishment, the writer was struck with the display of jewellery which adorned the person of a trainer's wife; probably enough, none of the ladies of those owners who had horses in that man's stables possessed such a valuable collection of gems as she wore on her fingers and bosom, nor did the lady evince much reluctance about giving their history—she was not reticent.
It has from time to time been hinted that the money lost by backers of horses finds its way to a good amount into the coffers of a few turf sharks who are banded together in "a ring," and who have dealings with not a few of the training fraternity as well as with a number of the jockeys. There may be a degree of truth in what has been said by certain newspapers with regard to this mode of conspiracy, but much of this kind of gossip which percolates through the columns of the press is only gossip—not gospel. Even if it were founded on fact it would be difficult to find proof of such misdeeds. Those persons who have the best chances of making money by means of horse-racing are the men who act as go-betweens for jockeys, or for trainers, or for such owners of horses as are also keen betting men. Of late years one or two of this fraternity have come to the front, having proved wonderfully successful at the business and put money in their purses, honestly it is to be hoped. At any rate they have become wealthy, and from being helpers or touts on the training-grounds have "risen," as one gushing writer said about them. In other words, they have now a bank account and enjoy the luxury of clean linen and water-tight boots, which hundreds of men who back their "fancy" cannot hope for.
When the tide of "luck" favours those men who court the smiles of Fortune in racing circles, she seems to lavish her treasures on them with an unsparing hand. There are men now living at Newmarket worth thousands of pounds that ten or twelve years since would have found it difficult to scrape together ten shillings. These are among the men who have "risen," and so dazzled the eyes of some of the gentlemen of the sporting press. When they own a horse or two, as several now do, and one of their animals proves successful in winning a race, they are at once elevated another step, and spoken of by some writers as "the astute Mr. So-and-So," or as Mr. This-and-That, "the clever and intelligent owner" of Cheek and other well-known horses.
During recent years much has been written and said against the system of betting for ready money. Of all the "fads" (the reader is asked to excuse this vulgarism) connected with gambling on the turf that have become prominent during recent years the denunciation of ready money betting is certainly the most extraordinary—the most abused of them all. Ready money betting has been declared illegal. But why should betting in ready money be wrong if betting on credit be right? If any kind of betting be proper it most assuredly should be betting for ready money, than which there ought to be no other kind of betting. The rules of logic were never surely so much set at naught as when it was decreed that betting by means of the payment of ready money—that is to say the depositing of the stakes—should be stigmatised as being illegal. Probably by an interpretation of the law there is no such thing as legal betting; it has hitherto been held that betting of any kind is illegal. Bets are not recoverable at law; but bets made by one party who acts as agent for another party can be sued for, and may be recovered; at any rate the person who instructs an agent to make a bet on his behalf can be sued in a court of law for the amount of the stake. It surely is reasonable to argue that if betting for ready money be bad, betting on credit is worse. Everything points to the probability of betting when it began being for ready money only, and that as a rule stakes on both sides were deposited pending the event to be decided. Why should it not be so to-day?
With the advent of credit betting began the reign of the "blacklegs," the nefarious frauds and swindles, the poisonings and pullings, the watering and watching of horses, with which men who interest themselves in the sport of kings are now so familiar. Judging from the tone of recent legislation, what our parliamentarians are wroth about is, that betting has become a business requiring the intervention of that middle man, the obnoxious "bookmaker," but it is really better that it should be so, if betting on horse-racing is to be allowed to be continued in any shape. Why should men who will never cease to bet so long as horse-racing goes on be driven to bet one with another, which is the worst form of speculation? Who can mention any more humiliating spectacle than that furnished by a "noble" sportsman "doing" his friend over the Derby, or some other race? In reality that is the kind of betting pointed at by some of our turf big-wigs as being the best form of speculation of the kind; to these men the bookmaker is a disgust.
It is earnestly to be hoped, if horse-racing is to endure, in which event there must be betting, that the bookmaker will be permitted to ply his pencil, as also that he will be licensed by the Jockey Club and be authorised to bet for ready money only. The writer of the article in The Edinburgh Review, already referred to, puts the case in favour of ready money in a forcible fashion: "If a man were compelled to deposit his stake every time he made a bet, he would be more cautious in betting. Put me down the odds to a monkey is easy to say, but the monkey (£500) is not so easy to pay if the bet is lost, and were it to pay at the moment the chances are that no monkey would be put down."
Betting between private friends is a horror of the worst description. Think of Major Bobadil laying Ensign Simple 100 to 25 against a horse which he knows will never be started for the race it is being backed to win. In such circumstances what would be a proper designation for Major Bobadil, blackguard or blackleg? It will of course be said, if you go to a bookmaker he possesses the same knowledge, and so he may; but then the bookmaker is neither your mess-fellow nor your private friend. Persons who are determined to bet ought never to bet with a friend, but should invariably resort to the professional bookmaker.