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g underlying the transaction has been greed of gain, however disguised as merely strong advocacy of some opinion--an opinion, perhaps, as to whether some horse will run a certain distance faster than another, whether certain dice will show a greater or less number of points, or the like. If here and there some few are to be found so strangely constituted mentally as really to take interest in having correct opinions on such matters, they are so few that they do not affect the general conclusion. They may bet to show they really think in such and such a way, and not to win money; but the great majority of betting men, professional (save the mark) or otherwise, want to win money, which is right enough, and to win money without working or doing some good for it, which is essentially immoral. That in a very large proportion of cases this negative immorality assumes a positive form--men trying to make unfair wagers (by betting with unfair knowledge of the real chances) -no one acquainted with the betting world, no one
who reads a sporting paper, no one even who reads the sporting columns of the daily papers, can fail to see. Why, if half the assurances of the various sporting prophets were trustworthy, betting, assisted by their instructions, would be as dishonorable as gambling with marked cards, as dishonest as picking pockets. Here is my ' Vaticinator,' the betting man might say, who says that Roguery is almost sure to win the ' Beggar my neighbor' stakes, but if he does not, that speedy mare, Rascality, will unquestionably win. Here are the bookmakers, who seem all quite as ready to lay the odds against Roguery and Rascality as against any of the other horses, to say nothing of my friends, Verdant and Flathead, who will freely back any of these latter. Now, if I back Roguery and Rascality with the bookmakers, and lay odds against the certain losers in the race, I shall certainly win all round. Of course, ' Vaticinator' is not the prophet he claims to be, but the betting man of our soliloquy supposes that he is; and so far as the morality of the course the latter follows is concerned the case is the same as though ' Vaticinator's' prophecies were gospel. There is not a particle of real distinction between what the bettor wants to do, and what a gambler, with cogged dice or marked cards, actually does. The more knowing a betting man claims to be, the easier it is to see that he wants and expects to take unfair advantage of other men. Either he
I hope there is no turf prophet with this nom-de-plume. I know of none, or I would not use the name; but it may have been hit upon by some sporting man with a taste for polysyllables.
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