A player of horses who finds that he has lost money in flat betting, or in wagering varying amounts without system, frequently becomes in­terested in progressive betting as a possible means of ac­complishing what he has been unable to do otherwise, namely, make money.

Of course not all progressive betting is system play, nor is all system play progressive betting. A man may wager larger and larger amounts after each losing bet, doing so without following any predetermined pattern, but that is not system play. Another man may put together a me­chanical method of getting his horses for play in the first place, without joining to the method a predetermined pattern of play in the event any single animal loses, but that is not progressive betting.

Usually a system, as it is invented by, or sold to, a horse-player, embodies two unrelated elements. In the first place, it provides some purely mechanical way of getting the horses to be bet, without calling for any independent handicapping of fields by the operator. Usually this way of finding the horses to be backed is to take the top horse or the best bet of a single public selector, the horse on which two or more selectors agree, or the top horse of a particular consensus. This selection method is made part of the system simply because the public knows it can't pick horses for itself and would shy away from anything that required an individual player to assume the burden of getting his horses strictly on his own.5

In the second place, a system of play usually outlines some predetermined schedule for increasing the next wa­ger after a losing single transaction. It may provide that the next bet be doubled. Or it may provide that the next bet be increased by one predetermined betting unit that amounts to something less than doubling. Or, in an effort to force a certain predetermined profit per race, the sys­tem may provide for betting enough money on the next horse after a loss so that if he wins, the bet at the odds against him will yield not only the required profit on him but also the required profit on the preceding horse which lost, plus the amount lost on him.

There is something to be said about both aspects of pro­gressive system play, about the rules for selection of plays and also about the particular progressive mechanism.

At the outset a player should get rid of any notion that rules for picking horses mechanically can achieve better results than a first-class handicapper can show when considering the vital factor of price as well as each selection's chances of winning apart from price. All rules for picking horses that are embodied in systems merely are attempts to set up principles of acceptance and ex­clusion of horses that form just the rough background of the horse-wisdom used by a real handicapper in ap­plying what he knows about his art to particular cases. It is folly to believe that any system-inventor is going to put together a series of rules of selection and exclusion that will better or even equal the results attainable by a first-class handicapper who has given adequate personal attention to a particular race. And if the rules for get­ting plays simply refer an operator to the opinion of a public selector or a number of public selectors, then he will be subject to all the fallibilities and dangers in­herent in following selectors in play. These have already been discussed.

A book of my own giving a method ,of getting horses for play without reference to the opinion of public selectors is Profits on Horses (William Morrow & Company, New York, 1937). The method of selection presented, which can be applied by one with­out knowledge of handicapping procedures, showed heavy profits for a period of about two years, but after that began to lose in spots. The basic principle followed, that of accepting as wagers only animals of great consistency in winning and running in the money when properly placed, is just as valid and potent to­day as when the book was published. I have not checked sys­tematically on the results of playing the method of that book since 1940, and I do not know whether it has been beating them or the reverse. I have reason to suspect, however, that the failure of the method after a time was due to its exposure to the public in book form and several magazine articles. Apparently the re­sult was to attract too much public play to horses of the type indicated, because the later failure of the method stemmed from diminished prices on winners rather than from a lower per­centage of winning transactions.

In one respect only is it better to follow a set of me­chanical rules or even a public selector, always on the assumption that a particular player is not a competent handicapper. A set of mechanical rules sometimes will put one on a horse going to post at a long price that does in fact win. And any public selector will do the same thing occasionally. To say this is not to imply that one who follows system rules of selection or follows pub­lic selectors will avoid loss of money. It merely amounts to saying that one who operates thus may lose less than a flounderer or stabber who is guided by nothing ex­cept his own whims.

A very high percentage of all systems that get to the public, whether books, articles in turf magazines or mimeographed sheets, direct the player to public selec­tors. And I think I have said enough about the chances of one who follows these gentry. Nor is this the place to discuss the systems which attempt to precipitate sound handicapping principles in their rules for selection and exclusion of plays. But there is something to be said about the validity of progressive play in general as an attempt to wring success from a series of bets which would have shown a loss if wagered all in equal amounts.

Let me take up the method of doubling each successive bet after a loss, which is mathematically valid to the ex­tent that an ultimate winner secured will recoup all losses from preceding bets and will show in addition a profit of the amount wagered before the first doubling occurred, if the winner pays even money.

That's the bare arithmetic of the doubling method, but what are the practical facts?

In the first place, on the assumption that the first bet is for only $10, the method requires that over $10,000 be wagered on the eleventh horse after ten consecutive losses. If the losing streak ran to twenty bets, the next wager would have to be in millions of dollars—to recoup losses and win $10 net. In the course of a year any handicapper in this world may run into ten or more consecutive losers. No one has enough money to carry a double play through bad streaks.

In the second place, if a player had enough money to carry on through long streaks of losers to the ultimate winner, its weight on the horse in the mutuel machines would depress price far below even money, which must be secured if the doubling method is to work out a profit.

And in the third place, since the human race still en­joys lucid intervals, the chances are that the individual player would refuse to bet some millions of dollars to win a mutuel pay-off of 5c on the dollar which would not even recoup his losses.

I know that at this point readers who are system-addicts will begin to fume that everyone knows the dou­ble progression is too steep; that there are much less radi­cal progressions. Most certainly the double method is too steep. As to other progressive betting methods, all I know is that we do not seem to be producing surplus crops of turf millionaires although hundreds of sure-fire, get-rich-quick progressive schemes are on sale for anything from 25c up.

The main attraction of any progressive mechanism of betting, before it is applied to real horses with real money, is the lovely vision of the highest bet of a series riding on the horse that ultimately wins. The vision may be lovely, but a lot of money must have been lost in previous un­successful wagers to get the play 'up to that level of the progression.

No race-player has unlimited funds,; to enable him to operate the progression with what few tens, hundreds or thousands he has, he must start his play at a low wager— $2, $5, $10—so that if he begins to experience losses he will have enough money left to carry his progression through to the bitter end. And low initial wagers simply mean that if he-is successful and does get a lot of win­ners from the beginning at the minimum point he will be pocketing relatively few dollars as profits—since he has been betting so little. To get his play up to a level where his profits from an individual wager will be substantial he must have experienced a series of previous losses which his profits from the ultimate winner will serve only to reduce. They will not be net. In other words, if a system-player's selections are successful from the beginning he will be making very little money from his bets that stay small just because he is successful. And if his selections are successful only after he has experienced losses the profit from the ultimate winners will serve only to recoup or reduce previous losses, not to increase initial capital.

I have no space to set up here long series of progres­sions of various types, in contrast with flat play on the same horses, in order to demonstrate that no progression will convert into net profit any loss that would have resuited from betting the same horses in flat amounts. If flat betting would have resulted in small loss, in per­centage of total amount wagered, a reasonably formu­lated progression may operate to bring out in black ink a series of bets on the same horses. But there is no real difference, to a hard-headed player who is trying to make money, between a small loss and an equally trifling profit, Characteristically all progressive systems of play that man­age to get into type in any publication, are triumphs only in the sense that a small profit from progressive betting instead of a small loss from flat betting is shown.

One type of progressive betting that is particularly vi­cious is that method which insists that just so much, no more and no less, shall be won on each horse bet. The particular amount insisted upon may be $2, $5, $.10, or $1.00, but the effect may be suicidal. If the horses that happen to be bet on should show a loss if wagered flat— which is probable in the case of a player who gets his horses from selectors or from wacky rules of selection— then the attempt to make a fixed amount on each one over a period would result only in pyramiding losses. Say that the attempt is to make $5 a horse, betting the amount necessary to secure that profit on each animal in view of the odds against him. Assume also that the first horse taken under the rules is at even money, so that $5 must be wagered on him to win $5 if he does come in first. If he loses, and if the next horse is going at even money, three bets must be made to carry out the conditions of the sys­tem in the event of success. (1) Five dollars must be bet on the second horse at even money to win back the $5 lost on the first animal. (2) Another $5 must be bet on the second to yield the required fixed profit on the first. (3) And another $5 must be bet on the second horse to win in addition the required amount from him if he is successful. If he does happen to win all is well. A total of $20 has been bet, $5 on the first horse and $15 on the second, and the player is $10 ahead, which is at the re­quired rate of $5 per horse. But if the second horse loses the player is out $20, and from this point on, if the third, fourth, and fifth horses lose, the proceedings are apt to be­come somewhat disastrous.

All these "due-column" methods are as silly as those who formulate them and those who play them. Any given series of horses will yield just what the gods of racing have ordained, whether profit or loss, and anyone who tries to force a profit by methods that have been men­tioned will succeed only in going to the cleaner's twice as fast as he would have by betting the same animals flat, in a fixed amount.

I have taken up a few of the many weaknesses of pro­gressive systems of play. But their greatest and most ob­vious defect—apart from the massive fact that they will not work when based on the horses of public selectors or independent rules for selection of plays—is that their would-be operators almost always lack the nerve to carry them through to the ultimate winner that would pull them out of the hole. It is all very well for a system-inventor to lay out certain rules that are bound, as he sees it, to result in his own success or the success of anyone else who tries to operate the method. But the human equation comes in, the psychological factor. Under any of these methods the big bets must be made immediately after a series of losses has been encountered. When the scheme was laid out on paper, and checked against actual results before wagering real money, all was serene. The next bet, after a streak of losers, may have been $50, $250, $500 or $1,000, and it was easy to make it because no money was involved. But when the losers have been bet, and with real money that is gone but not forgotten, the situation is slightly different. The operator must be more than hu­man if his prior losses have not seriously shaken his confi­dence in the method. The probabilities are that he will quit or that he will make on the next horse a bet much smaller than the amount called for by the method. In either event he has ceased to play his system.

The psychological question, the matter of an individual player's character and nerve, is immensely important in betting operations of any type. A handicapper who selects his own horses is bound to have his confidence shaken by a series of losers. He may realize that he is not sure of himself and his ability, or the vague and distressing con­cept may be floating about only in his subconsciousness. In any event the feeling or mere uneasiness is there. The effect must be to lead him to wager on horses that the selectors like, the favorites and short-priced near-favorites that flash so impressively on the odds board and that also often finish up the course. I will not elaborate here, but ability to resist the effect of one's own failures is the very first of a number of qualities that must be possessed by one who would be successful at the tracks. If a rather able detector and player of overlays—horses going at prices longer than their real chances to win—is so shaken by a string of losers that he starts to bet on favorites and chalk horses, then he has no hope of further success un­til he gets back on the decently priced animals that will result in profit over a period of time and a sequence of bets. Or if a bettor is so shaken by a string of losers that he drops his play back to a much lower amount per horse, he also has no hope of success until he regains confidence in himself and steps up his wagers to the usual figure.

I have left to the last the most effective- mathematical criticism of progressive betting. Assume, for instance, that a particular player has started a progression, planning to bet $5 on the first horse, $10 on the second if the first loses, $15 on the third if the second loses, and so on, the play rising by $5 steps as additional losers are encountered. No matter how high the individual bet goes, after the operation is over the play may be analyzed as follows. So many bets of $5 were made, so many bets of $10, so many of $15, so many of $20, so many of $25, and so many of any higher figure or figures. And this is the point. The actual time-sequence of any two bets in the series has nothing to do with loss or profit from the whole string. The assumption is that the wager increases by $5 after each loss, but what of it? The fact that a higher winning bet follows a losing bet—if the higher bet does win—does not increase or diminish the profit from it by one cent. Whether a number of bets in varying amounts win money or lose money depends only on whether the greater part of the larger bets won and were cashed at good prices. If a high percentage of the bets above the median line of the series should be cashed, then the probabilities are that' profit would result from the whole operation. The median line of the series means the amount halfway between the lowest and the highest bet. Or if a substantial percentage of the higher bets should be cashed at long prices, then it is almost a certainty that profit would result from the whole operation. But no percentage of success in the bets in the lower amounts can compensate for lack of success in bets of the higher amounts. In other words, a progres­sive bettor merely is doing what is done by another type of player who varies the amounts he wagers either whim­sically or in accordance with his view of the horse's chances of winning. A progressive system operator raises his bets after losses; the other type raises them as he sees the chances of each individual horse. But in either case the result is the same. Each type of player will win money if his higher bets are successful, and lose money if they are not. The fact that the system player is following a scheme that requires him to increase wagers after losses is entirely immaterial to his success.

Progressive betting always has been an alluring mirage to bettors who can't beat them on flat play and who know it.

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