While the belief in luck is the basis of the gambling habit, it
is not the only element that enters into the habit of betting.
Betting on the issue of contests of strength and skill proceeds
on a further motive, without which the belief in luck would
scarcely come in as a prominent feature of sporting life. This
further motive is the desire of the anticipated winner, or the
partisan of the anticipated winning side, to heighten his side's
ascendency at the cost of the loser. Not only does the stronger
side score a more signal victory, and the losing side suffer a
more painful and humiliating defeat, in proportion as the
pecuniary gain and loss in the wager is large; although this
alone is a consideration of material weight. But the wager is
commonly laid also with a view, not avowed in words nor even
recognized in set terms in petto, to enhancing the chances of
success for the contestant on which it is laid. It is felt that
substance and solicitude expended to this end can not go for
naught in the issue. There is here a special manifestation of the
instinct of workmanship, backed by an even more manifest sense
that the animistic congruity of things must decide for a
victorious outcome for the side in whose behalf the propensity
inherent in events has been propitiated and fortified by so much
of conative and kinetic urging.
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