A Gambling Story: Past Posting the Ponies

My first experience with past posting occurred when I was still in high school.  I worked at a fancy country club in Dallas.  On weekends, the country club held what they called “casino nights.” 

Gambling has no holy grail.  But if there’s such a thing as finding the golden goose, it’s past posting.

While not exactly legal, past posting means placing a bet after the event’s outcome is already known.  For instance, if someone was foolish enough to accept a wager on last night’s ball game, to place a bet with him would be past posting.

My first experience with past posting occurred when I was still in high school.  I worked at a fancy country club in Dallas.  On weekends, the country club held what they called “casino nights.”  Since Texas had no legal gambling of any kind at the time, “casino night” was wildly popular, operating sort of like an old speakeasy.  Hundreds of rich people showed up every Saturday night to gamble.

Horse races were the highlight of the evening.  Of course, the country club didn’t actually have any horses running.  Instead, a movie projector was wheeled in and set up inside the clubhouse restaurant.  Black and white film reels of old horse races from the 1970s were shown on a giant movie screen.  Betting windows were set up and everyone bet on obscure races that had been run years earlier at some track in Miami.  They even printed up sheets with the odds and names of the horses.  This was long before the internet.  Bettors had no way of knowing what races they were watching, so no one could possibly know the winning horses in advance.

Or couldn’t they?

The dues-paying country club members loved to gamble.  Bets ranged from $2 up to $200, paid at the actual track odds.  This actually made it a somewhat risky proposition for the house, since wagers weren’t aligned with the handle.  For a high school kid making five bucks an hour, seeing rich people betting hundreds of dollars on an old horse race projected up on a screen made quite an impression.  When the projector was turned on and the races were shown, the country club crowd screamed and cheered at the movie just like they were watching it live at the races.

I used to help set up the film projector every week.  It was one of those old-fashioned machines with double reels.  Before casino night started, we set everything up in the afternoon.  Naturally, we had to make sure the projector worked properly and the screen was in position.  So we usually got a sneak preview of some of the races.

Certainly, you see what’s coming.

Sometimes, the rich people would come over and try to bribe us.  They wanted the names of the winning horses.  Remember, this was Dallas’ business elite at the time.  I suppose they were used to breaking the rules.  It was all about getting inside information.  There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

For my buddy, an older college-age kid, the temptation of easy money was too strong.  He couldn’t resist.

My colleague cut a deal with somebody at the club.  Since he couldn’t make any bets himself — doing so would have aroused suspicion — he worked with a partner.  The following weekend he played the whole reel and watched the film in advance.  Later, he passed the winners on to one of the members.  This guy had some serious balls.

Well, the money man who made the bets wasn’t smart.  He pounded every race for the maximum and by the 7th or 8th race everybody figured out something was wrong.  The guy doing the past posting hit absolutely everything that night — 5 to 1 shots, 18 to 1, Even Money, 12 to 1, it didn’t matter.  He won every race.  Trouble was, he made a spectacle of himself.

I don’t know how much money was wagered or what the final take was, but they basically bankrupted the place in a single night.  Rather than milk the cash cow for a steady profit week after week, something that probably could have lasted for months without detection, instead they got greedy and butchered the lamb in a single whack.  Some real dumb shits.

An investigation was conducted.  The guy who ran the country club was royally pissed off, since he must have gotten fleeced really bad.  But he couldn’t exactly turn to the authorities.  After all, this was illegal gambling.  So, there really wasn’t much he could do.

Still, everyone knew it had to be an inside job.  I was interviewed but acted like I didn’t know anything.  One thing you didn’t do back in those days was snitch, even if you know the real story.  But they figured it all out anyway and the guy was fired.

That was the end of horse racing movie night.  The film projector was never rolled into the country club again and ended up gathering dust in a warehouse.  Betting on the horses ended.  About a month later “casino night” was raided and shut down.