Let me take up the method of doubling each successive bet after a loss, which is mathematically valid to the ex tent 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 en joys 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.