[f. BET v. + -ING1.] The making of bets, wagering. To change the betting, i.e., the course of the betting on an event, put for ‘the chances, the way things are going.’
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., II. i. 98. You’l pay me the eight shillings I won of you at Betting?
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 548. Gambling and betting were his amusements.
1858. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., II. lxxx. 38. It is not hiding the head as is the wont of the ostrich and the turkey, that will change the betting.
2. Comb., as betting-book, a book in which a better enters his bets; betting-house, a house where betting is carried on; betting-man, one who makes bets, a better, usually a professional gambler; betting-post, (?) a post or station for betting-men.
1771. P. Parsons, Newmarket, II. 148. Let us walk a little about the betting-post.
1855. [Miss Cobbe], Ess. Intuitive Morals, 154. Making up their lives as sagaciously as a black-leg does his betting-book.
1864. Soc. Sc. Rev., 386. If he be a betting-man the race-course … calls him into the open air.
