Our Founding Fathers—particularly those of a Southern persuasion—gambled not only on horses but pretty much everything else.

Philip G. Smucker

07.04.17 12:00 AM ET

During the Revolution, George Washington, spotting a group of Connecticut cavalry officers on fine gray horses, inquired with one Captain Lindsey about a set of Arabian horses sired by a stud named Ranger. As it turned out, the sultan of Morocco had gifted Ranger to a British captain who had left the horse on American soil as a breeder. Washington, who had an eye for fine horses, bought the horse, which he subsequently crossed with another famous Arabian offspring, the mare Othello. The mare sired Magnolio, a chestnut stallion, who raced and lost at the Alexandria, Virginia track against a horse belonging to George's friend and sometimes rival Thomas Jefferson. Cutting his losses, George sold Magnolio to his friend Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee for several thousand acres of land in Kentucky.

In many ways, gambling on horses in the 18th century was easier than it is today. Most of the "gentlemen" who bet on horses knew each other; they knew their horses, including the bloodlines of the opposing horses. The riders were often servants or slaves, and while the races were an often brutal sport for the riders, for the gentry, they allowed for stylish displays, including exhibitions by ladies sporting new dresses and parasols. Race days, which often coincided with court days, legitimized aristocratic values, including wealth, competition, and independence. The scene also allowed men to let off steam and to settle financial scores in a peaceful, even genteel manner.

Our Founding Fathers—particularly those of a Southern persuasion—gambled not only on horses but pretty much everything else. Virginia, known as the Old Dominion, spawned a gambling tradition grounded in age-old British traditions. Gambling houses in London in the 17th and 18th centuries became playgrounds for the rich and famous—maybe not unlike a gilded Trump Casino on a fine day. Virginia's wealthy but cash-strapped planters—like Jefferson and Washington—moderated their gambling in ways that the British aristocrats often did not need to. Nevertheless, a northern visitor to Williamsburg, the capital of the Old Dominion, commented that Virginians were "much addicted to gambling, drinking, swearing, horse-racing, cock-fighting, and most Kinds of Dissipation."

Indeed, Washington and Jefferson's fellow Virginians generally insisted on having as much fun as their English cousins. They bet on everything from jumping frogs, cocks, dogs, rats, and dogs killing rats as well as bears killing men—they even bet on the precise day and hour of an expected child's birth. Little wonder that in New England, gambling was often frowned on by Puritan patriarchs, who called it a dishonor to the Maker and dealt out firm lashes for lascivious gamesters.