Q: I’m guessing you’re familiar with the “Daily Double” feature on the game show Jeopardy! It’s catchy and alliterative, but I find the usage jarring, since it scarcely resembles the “daily double” I know from my misspent days at the horse races.
A: The “Daily Double” is popular with viewers of Jeopardy! and, as you say, the name is catchy and alliterative. Our guess is that the show’s producers aren’t bothered one whit that their use of the expression bears little resemblance to the original horse-racing term.
In the game, contestants who hit a “Daily Double” can bet part or all of their accumulated winnings and—they hope—collect double their wager. But at the track, a “daily double” is a single bet that picks the winners of two separate races.
So the Jeopardy! use of “daily double” isn’t historically authentic. But seriously, if McDonald’s can name a two-patty cheeseburger the “Daily Double” (basically a “McDouble” with different toppings), then why can’t Jeopardy! make use of the term too? At least the game show usage involves betting, so it preserves some of the original wagering sense.
The noun “daily double” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, an etymological dictionary based on historical evidence, as “a single bet placed on the winners of two (often consecutive) races in a single day’s racing; (also) the two races designated as eligible for such a bet.” It’s a “chiefly Horse Racing” usage, the OED says.
The dictionary’s examples of “daily double” begin in the 1930s, but we’ve found earlier uses of the phrase. Searches of old newspaper databases show that it first appeared as a turf expression in late 19th-century Britain, where it cropped up in newspaper ads placed by tipsters, bookmakers, and “commission agents” (those who place bets on behalf of clients).
The earliest example we’ve found is from an ad in The Sporting Life (London, March 13, 1899). A turf insider offered to telegraph tips to clients for a fee, including “two-horse wires (a daily double, magnificent value).”
Unfortunately, the precise meaning of “daily double” isn’t spelled out in early uses. No doubt it was commonly known among bettors before it showed up in print.
The term continued to appear in turn-of-the-century British newspapers, in articles by sports writers as well as in ads placed by bookies and tipsters:
“Chief interest centres in the Liverpool Cup today, for which I think FOUNDLING will go close. For my daily double I shall couple the following” (The Daily Mirror, London, July 22, 1904) … “Suggested daily doubles” (The Sporting Chronicle, Lancashire, Oct. 22, 1904) … “All sportsmen should remit a sovereign for week’s Daily Double” (Dublin Daily Express, April 1, 1905).
And this ad, placed by a well-known commission agent, was trumpeted in Ireland and England: “ARTHUR COCKBURN IN MARVELLOUS FORM [headline] His daily Three-horse Wires are simply Invincible. Every Wire indicates his Daily Double and also Special One-horse Selection” (in both The Belfast Telegraph and The Leeds Mercury, Aug. 30, 1909).
The meaning of daily double” is clear in this later example, where a prognosticator boasted after the fact that “I selected four winners in Dutch Toy, Plum, and Vertigo, whilst daily double was Plum and Vertigo” (The Daily Herald, London, Sept. 13, 1920). So three of his tips were for individual winners and the fourth was for a “daily double,” a single bet picking two winners.
And here’s another example, from a bookmaker’s ad promising unlimited payouts: “No doubt, in common with most backers, you fancy your daily double. Have you ever seen your selections winning at multiplied odds totalling hundreds to one and been paid at the rate of some ridiculous limit?” (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, London, Feb. 9, 1924).
The OED’s earliest examples for “daily double” begin in 1930, when England officially approved the use of the bet on the government-regulated apparatus known as the totalizator. (Invented in the 19th century, the totalizator was a mechanical device for recording bets and total amounts wagered. The noun came into English in 1879, adopted from the term for the same device in French, totalisateur, 1870.)
The first OED citation for “daily double” is a heading in The Times (London, Sept. 25, 1930): “Totalisator Daily Double.”
A news item later that week in an Australian newspaper explained how the “daily double” worked: “DAILY DOUBLE ON TOTE: The English [Racetrack] Betting Board of Control has instituted a daily double on the tote. The first day it was tried no backer was lucky enough to pick the winner of the two selected races. … According to rule, the pool was equally divided between those who named the winner of either race. Fifty backers participated in the pool, sixteen naming Last of the Estelles, winner of the first race, with a loser, and thirty-four Story Teller, who won the second race, with a loser” (The Queensland Times, Nov. 1, 1930).
According to newspaper accounts of the time, the first official “tote daily doubles” in England were run at Leicester and Brighton on Sept. 22, 1930, and at additional tracks on subsequent days and weeks.
The term “daily double” crossed the Atlantic—officially, at least—the following year. The OED’s earliest North American example is from a Canadian newspaper: “The ‘daily double’ system of betting was inaugurated for the first time on this continent at Victoria Park this afternoon” (The Manitoba Free Press, Winnipeg, May 21, 1931).
The earliest example we’ve seen in a US newspaper is from later that year. After describing the long-shot winners of the third and fifth races at Agua Caliente, Mexico, the article goes on: “Had someone thought to play the combination as a ‘daily double,’ he would have won $4678.80, the highest price ever paid on a $2 ticket” (Imperial Valley Press, El Centro, Calif., Aug. 19, 1931).
Soon afterward, according to Oxford citations, “double” was used in the US as short for “daily double.” Here’s the dictionary’s first example: “Only two men … held tickets on the double, which is governed somewhat along the lines of a parley bet” (New York Times, Sept. 15, 1931).
And as this later OED example shows, the usage also appears in British English: “David Nicholson and Peter Scudamore … brought off a 285-1 double on a day of shocks and spills at Windsor” (The Sporting Life, March 8, 1983).
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