THE PARIS BETTING SYSTEM.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 388, 19 August 1911, Page 7

THE PARIS BETTING SYSTEM.

fjoi quite the Perfect System Some Folks Think it is. The new hotting laws in ssveral of our States have brought into notice the French plan of betting, which for some reason not so very clear to the average mind is supposed to be a mild ana improved manner of placing a wager. In the first, place the management of the track assumes the whole responsibility of receiving and paying, and no bookmakers are in the game. There are two sets of so-called machines, although the machinery consists simply of clerks and computers —one for two-dollar bets and one for five-dollar bets, and each for straight place, and show. Tickets are sold and handed out. When a horse wins', says "Bit and Spur," all the straight tickets sold are multipliad by the number live in the five-dollar machine to get the total of dollars there. In the twodollar division the multiplicatiou, of course, is by two.

The amount in the pool obtained, the calculator at once in the interest of the association deducts five per cent, for profit and expenses. The amount is then divided by the number of tickets which had been sold on what has proved to be the winner, and the payment for each ticket is the result.

A little arithmetical cogitation will give light on the next process for place and show horses, the only difference being that the division into two or three parts for distribution of the payments is necessary in distributing the pool money. The house keeps all fractions as well as its five per cent., and when dead heats are run the money is divided in a way which makes provision for the extra horss sharing in the first position. Amo'g the absurdities of the parimutuel system is the fact that it only straight tickets were sold and they all on the winner, the better would not win anything, but would get back his money, less the percentage and the fractions. This could hardly be a possible condition of a race, and the machine men guard against too much money coming in on a prime favourite by cutting his name out of the card. Another fact that is patent in this as in all percentage games is that if the play goes on long enough the persistent deduction of five per cent, will eventually (and not so far distant) eat up all the money on the grounds not in the hands of the machine owners.