But even at _vingt-et-un_ or baccarat there is
something more than chance which is taking a hand in the game; not
skill, perhaps, but at least personality. If you are only throwing
dice, you are engaged in a personal struggle with another man, and you
are directing the struggle to this extent, that you can call the value
of the stakes, and decide whether to go on or to stop. And is there
any man who, having made a fortune at Monte Carlo, will admit that he
owes it entirely to chance? Will he not rather attribute it to his
wonderful system, or if not to that, at any rate to his wonderful
nerve, his perseverance, or his recklessness?
The "game" element, then, comes into all these forms of gambling,
and still more strongly does it pervade that most common form of
gambling, betting on horses. I do not suggest that the street-corner
boy who puts a shilling both ways on Bronchitis knows anything
whatever about horses, but at least he thinks he does; and if he wins
five shillings on that happy afternoon when Bronchitis proves himself
to be the 2.
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