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BETTING ON RACES BY SYSTEM An eastern writer who has evidently had ex ¬ perience prince in that line whereof he writes asks a question that annually perplexes thousands of hopeful turf tenderfoot and sums up his con ¬ clusions elusions as follows Is is possible to devise a system to beat the races racesThousands acetous Thousands of people who have pored over turf statistics during long winter nights firmly believe that systematic play will win Many others who have paid some attention to the laws of chances or to the vagaries of luck to put the matter more plainly are not HO san ¬ guine guinea guineThat gunmetal That much time and thought are annually expended in the development of systems is certain and that some of these hard and fast methods of betting achieve at least temporary success is also certain But this ready road to fortune is strewn with the wreckage of count ¬ less hoarded savings and it is yet to be demon ¬ strated striated that any system has stood the crucial test for any peroid period of time timeThe trimester The simplest form of systematic betting is that of parleying over the mounts of some par ¬ ticular titular jockey That is you begin with a specified sum say 310 and if you lose double your bet or increase it sufficiently at each new hazard to win back your losses and a stated sum besides This scheme like a good many others is all right if it is lucky luckyFor lucky For example any follower of Maher would have won all through the season up to the period throe or four weeks ago when Maher began to lose The Bank of England would scarcely have tided the daring speculator over Mahers Mashers succession of twentythree twenty losing mounts mountsSystems mounts Systems of parleying over the favorites or the second choices to win or for place have about as much merit as the jockey plan There is nothing like it while the favorites and second choices are winning But when outsiders land in front as they did the first days of the Graves end meeting then the prospect is not quite so cheerful cheerfulYou cheerfully You can prove aaything anything by figures You can work out a system of betting based on favorites and second choices that will put you in the mood to look with pity on the demented folk around you who continue to work for a living Your system is perfect on paper but when you come to put it into practical operation that is quite another matter Scores of contingencies not provided for in the figures will confront you at every turn turnAmong tournament Among two or three well backed horses you will find it difficult for example to decide on the particular ona Mona that is favorite And you cannot afford to make a mistake if your system demands that you should bet a big amount of money say 1000 or more moreA morA A scheme of betting that has some merit was put in operation a few years ago by a couple of clever young men from Brooklyn But there was not very much system about it after all It was merely a matter of betting ou form The card each day was doped down to from three to four selections in each race according to the number of entries first second third thirdand third and fourth fourthThen fourth Then the young men began betting on the first choices to win 10 and they kept doubling up for six races when if they failed to strike a winner they began over again A similar prac pac ¬ tice trice was pursued with the horses named to be second third and fourth The transactions were carried in column account form and a separate account was kept for each column columnThe column The feature of the plan that permitted its successful operation for a time was the fact that frequently big bets placed on the third and fourth horses at profitable odds happened to win winUndoubtedly Undoubtedly handicapping and the study of form condition and price are the best guides to betting If the average man cant beat the races by betting on the best horses he cant beat them at all The handicappers some of whom have grown rich in the last few years hold to this proposition They assume that the best hone will win winOf winO Of course the best horses do not always win but they win a big majority of the races and it a man can successfully handicap to the best form and bet that way he is pretty certain to make a brave fight with the layers of odds even if he does not beat them appreciably appreciablyA appreciably A clever young handicapper has won hand ¬ somely smelly this season through his judgment of form and of price When he handicaps three i or four horses very nearly together jockeys and other conditions being equal instead of betting on one that is favorite or second choice he bets on one that is at a long price 10 or 15 or 20 to 1 Of course he only wins occasionally but one can afford to lose quite a number of races j if he can land on a 20 to 1 shot once in a while whileThis while This seems to be the real secret of successful betting Suppose for example that there are ten horses in a race Your handicap shows that the contest ought to be between four of them and these four arc very close together not more than two or three pounds between any of them Suppose further that one is a favorite in the CONTINUED ON SECOND PAGE BETTING ON RACES BY SYSTEM Continued from 1st Page betting 7 to 5 another second choice at 5 to 2 that the third is quoted at 10 to 1 and the fourth at 20 to 1 1If If your handicap is correct then these prices are obviously wrong because there is not the difference of 7 to 5 and 20 to 1 between any of the quartet Therefore when you bat on the 10 to 1 horse or on the 20 to 1 horse you are simply betting against the bookmaker You are betting that your handicap is right and that his prices are wrong And if you are a clever handicapper you are bound to be financially right sometimes because the result will demonstrate that the odds quoted were wrong wrongWhen roughen When a man bets on the favorite the per ¬ centage entangle is against him but when he bets on the outsider that ought to be favorite then it looks as though the percentage is with him and against the man who lays the odds oddsThis oddest This careful study of form and price all the big plungers say is tho thou secret of successful bet ¬ ting
