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SUCCESS OF THE MUTUELS FIGURES SHOWING GREAT GAIN IN TRACK REVENUE COMPARED WITH BOOKING Characteristic Variations in Place and Show Prices 0 Where the Odds Are Determined by the RaceGoing Public To tho officials of the tracks other than those of New York the business side of the substitution at Louisville of parlmntucls and auction pooling for bookmaking is vested with lively interest Com ¬ pelled to hustle annually to secure sufficient returns from admissions and privileges to meet expenses and pay something in the way of a dividend to stock ¬ holders these officials might naturally be expected to study the Louisville experiment with concern There concernThere is now no doubt of the thianiial success of the Louisville departure The returns of the first eleven days of the present meeting are greater than the returns from bookmaking for the first eleven days of last years meeting Bating the charge at at the usual rate of 100 per diem for each book the comparative daily returns from bmtks and mu ¬ tuels of the two meetings show the following results Days From Books From Mutuels 1907 1908 First 1908First day 2900 337850 337850Second Second day 2900 241700 Third 241700Third day 2900 279550 279550Fourth Fourth day 24 0 235470 Fifth 235470Fifth day 2500 30G150 30G150Sixth Sixth day 2700 213575 Seventh 213575Seventh day 2000 240825 Eighth 240825Eighth day 2400 244250 274525Tenth Ninth 244250Ninth day 2300 274525 Tenth day 2400 258175 258175Eleventh Eleventh day 2500 354775 Totals 2S500 0 92S45 92S45The The sales of auction pools for the first eleven days of flu present meeting aggregated 1415tS From this source comes an additional percentage of 707840 making a total revenue to the New Louis ¬ ville Jockey Club of 700iS5 as compared with 2S50T of last year from bookmaking This must be considered rather a striking object lesson There is another side to It The books last year made their best showing in the lirst eleven days of the meeting From that time on there was a falling off in the number of bookmakers to as low a figure as but seventeen The last eleven days of the meeting returning 21500 a decrease of 7000 from the in ¬ come to the club of the first eleven days While there are fluctuations in the dally aggregates of 11111 tuel sales it is quite safe to say that there will at no stage of the meeting be any such falling off as took place in the case of the bookmaking revenues in 1907 1907In In detail the business done by the New Louisville Jockey Club in parimutuels and auctons was as follows followsMutuels Mutuels Straight Place Sliow Auctions G790 2789 3929 120CT 3229 24K 3910 12145 o 2780 5070 12577 2550 39GG 11245 i r 34G 4015 12584 3094 21 38 3311 10232 ft 2 9 382G 12497 12497273G1 273G1 3477 13700 2925 387 1370G 2294 4420 12202 Totals 4409 29979 4500C 141508 141508This This is a total for eleven days of 119714 tickets sold at 5 each or an aggregate in money of 598570 From this it can be seen that the aver age of all the money bet per diem is less than fiS000 When some study of this point is indulged in it will serve to render ridiculous the wholesale stories of enormous killings rife when bookmaking was in order it being probable that quite as much money has been wagered dally at this meeting as at any of its predecessors predecessorsThe The striking feature so far as the racegoing public is concerned is the disproportion between straight place aid show betting as compared with bookmaking Take the case of E M Fry In the third race of Monday His straight tickets paid 1080 a shade less than G to 5 In liookinaklnp he would probably have been at even money but assuming that he would have been at G to 5 tho most liberal place and show odds that could have been expected would have l een 3 to 5 and 1 to H Yet In the mutuels his backers for place received back 1050 for each five dollars Invested or better than even money and to show eight dollars or exactly to 5 It is not to be assumed that the results in the E M Fry case hold good as an average of place and show returns for It does not It will he found that in the case of many races the place and show returns in the mutuels do not vary greatly from liberal bookmaking prices but the exceptions differ so greatly from booking odds that layers away from the track aver with some reason in some cases that they cannot afford to pay the mutiiel prices and so refuse to do so As a rule they are people looking for the best of It and In the long run they will have to abandon their present attitude or go out of business They can very well afford to pay the straight prices and then a reasonable grading of place and show odds in accordance with conventional booking prices would be satisfactory to all sensible patrons The mutucl system has qome to stay and all concerned might as well adjust themselves to that fact
