It was in early use, for we have the Wager of Battel, which was a practical bet between two men as to the justice of their cause. This ordeal was in force until 1819, when it was done away with by 59 Geo. III., c. 46.
In Shakespeare’s time betting was common, and the practice of giving and taking odds was well known, as we may see in Hamlet, Act v. s. 2, where Osrick, speaking to Hamlet, says, “The King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses; against which he hath imponed, as I take it, six French Rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdles, hangers and so.” In Cymbeline, Act i. s. 5, we have a bet, which is so serious that it has to be recorded. Iachimo says, “I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your ring, which, in my opinion, o’ervalues it something,” and, ultimately, ten thousand crowns are laid against the ring, and Iachimo says, “I will fetch my gold, and have our two wagers recorded.”
By the way, there was an epitaph on Combe, the usurer, which has been attributed to Shakespeare, which intimates the laying of odds.
“Ten in the hundred lies here ingraved;
‘Tis a hundred to ten, his soul is not sav’d.”
It is recorded of Sir John Packington, called “Lusty Packington” (Queen Elizabeth called him “her Temperance”), that he entered into articles to swim against three noblemen for £3000 from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich; but the queen, by her special command, prevented the bet being carried out.
Howell in his Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ says: “If one would try a petty conclusion how much smoke there is in a pound of Tobacco, the ashes will tell him: for, let a pound be exactly weighed, and the ashes kept charily and weighed afterwards, what wants of a pound weight in the ashes, cannot be denied to have been smoke which evaporated into air. I have been told that Sir Walter Rawleigh won a wager of Queen Elizabeth upon this nicety.”
Men betted, but their wagers are not recorded until the eighteenth century, and one of the earliest of these is told in Malcolm’s Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the eighteenth century. “Mrs Crackenthorpe, the Female Tatler of 1709, tells us ‘that four worthy Senators lately threw their hats into a river, laid a crown each whose hat should first swim to the mill, and ran hallooing after them; and he that won the prize, was in a greater rapture than if he had carried the most dangerous point in Parliament.’”
“There was an established Cock pit in Prescot Street, Goodman’s Fields, 1712: there the Gentlemen of the East entertained themselves, while the Nobles and others of the West were entertained by the edifying exhibition of the agility of their running footmen. His Grace of Grafton declared his man was unrivalled in speed; and the Lord Cholmondeley betted him that his excelled even the unrivalled; accordingly, the ground was prepared for a two mile heat, in Hyde Park; the race was run, and one of the parties was victor, but which, my informant does not say.”
“I have frequently observed, in the course of my researches, the strange methods and customs peculiar to gaming, horse racing, dice and wagers; the latter are generally governed by whim and extreme folly. We have already noticed Noblemen running their Coaches and Footmen. In 1729, a Poulterer of Leadenhall Market betted £50, he would walk 202 times round the area of Upper Moorfields in 27 hours, and, accordingly, proceeded at the rate of five miles an hour on the amusing pursuit, to the infinite improvement of his business, and great edification of hundreds of spectators. Wagers are now a favourite custom with too many of the Londoners; they very frequently, however, originate over the bottle, or the porter pot.”
“To characterise the follies of the day, it will be necessary to add to the account of the walking man, another, of a hopping man, who engaged to hop 500 yards, in 50 hops, in St James’s Park, which he performed in 46. This important event occurred in December 1731.”