Animal Gambling – British Tradition

Excerpt from a book of British Traditions

Another contest was ‘Attract the mouse,” which was played in the house of Martha Grable. She had a large mousehole in her skirting board. Gamblers placed their pieces of cheese around the hole and then crouched down behind the sofa to wait. The judge ensured that each piece was genuine cheese and hadn’t been doctored by a mouse attractant. The judge also ensured that each piece of cheese was exactly three feet from the hole. The winner was the person whose piece of cheese was first eaten by the mouse. A mouse sniffing at a piece of cheese didn’t count.

The most popular contest was “Guess the spots on the ladybird.” The ladybird judge would catch an insect and ask people to place bets on the number of spots. If the number of spots wasn’t guessed correctly all bets were carried over into the next guess. In 1763, an apparent plague of 10-spotted ladybirds was found to be a hoax perpetrated by Andrew Craig, the local painter, who was banned from all gambling events for 200 years.