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. In the second place, a system of play usually outlines some predetermined schedule for increasing the next wa ger 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 sys tem 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.