THE "STAR'S" TIPS.

[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR:1 Six,—I read with interest your article in the last issue on "The Star's Tips" and their relation to the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust, which assists to provide them. Towards the close of the last fiat-racing season I had occasion to examine the results to a backer who bet 21 "to win" on every tip given by a series of eight leading newspapers over a period of thirty racing days. Each follower of each tipster would have risked, roughly, £200. The most fortunate would have been £3 10s. in pocket ; all the others would have lost varying sums, the least fortunate being £70 "out." What the public actually does is to strike a sort of average of the tips given for each race, avoiding hot favourites as unremunera- tive, and hence the convenience of the tabulated "Selections from All To-day's Papers." A backer who can afford to pay what he risks at the close of a bad week, who does not vary his stake, and who is reasonably consistent will not go far wrong financially—a very few pounds one way or the other—at the end of three or four months. As you give the " Selections " that the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust, the Daily News, Limited, Mr. H. T. Cadbury, Mr. Crosfield, Mr. A. S. Rowntree, M.P., united to procure, and paid "Captain Coe" to provide on Chester Cup day, it is only fair to those gentlemen and to your readers to show how the advice worked out,—if not in the terms of social service, at least in terms of cash on the investment of a nominal £1 in each case:— No. of

Won.

Lost.

The

The Race.

The Tip. Runners.

a. d.

s. d.

Odds.

2.0 —City Plate Flower Saint... 9 ... — 1 0 0 ... 9-2 2.30—Badminton Plato Mecllicot 12 ... 2 10 0

—

5-2 3.15—Chester Cup Marco Fraeer 21 — 1 0 0 _100-15 3.50—Dee Stand H'cap Magneto 11 ... (third) ... 1 0 ... 2-1 4.20—Stewards Plate ... Avanti 5 (third) 1 ... 0 0 ... 5-4 4.50—Prince of Wales

Handicap 5.20—Stamford Weep Corinthian Apoplexy 12 .. 6 ... 4 0 0 10 8

— • -• ..„ ... 4-1 6-5

76

Place Horses.

3.15—Chester Cup 3.50—Dee Stand H'cup Accurate Pine Knot

...1210 0

0-•

25-2

(non-starter)

19 16 8 4 0 0 —

4 0 0

Winning balance ... 15 16 8

So that out of seventy-six actual starters (apart from many others included in the programme) the social service was performed of spotting three winners and three placed horses in seven events, and returning £15 16s. 8d. as profit on the investment of a. On this occasion "Captain Coe" adhered, except in substituting Flower Saint' for Blackstone,' to the "book," or recorded public form. But "Old Joe" advised Elizabetta' instead of 'Marco Fraser' for the Chester Cup. A Star reader who made the substitution would have cleared 224 16s. 8d. on the day.

As I turn to my Daily News to read the allurements adver- tised there of profits to be made by gambling with small sums in stocks of the most volatile description on a margin or cover of 1 per cent., I feel somehow that the balance of social service is being done by "Captain Coe," the "tout" (as you unkindly suggest), rather than by the Daily News, which appears to make the best of both worlds.—I am, Sir, &C., GEORGE SAMSON, Bensington, Oxon.