make a book

English

Verb

make a book (third-person singular simple present makes a book, present participle making a book, simple past and past participle made a book)

1. (horseracing, archaic) To lay bets (recorded in a pocketbook) against the success of every horse, so that the bookmaker wins on all the unsuccessful horses and loses only on the winning horse or horses.
   • 1866, Henry John Rous, On the Laws and Practice of Horse Racing:

     it must be acknowledged that it is impossible to make a book on any important race without the security of Play or Pay

Related terms

• bookmaker

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “make a book”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)