Totalizator

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

>Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:

>>TOTALIZATOR--Used in horseracing and seen several places.  Is
>>it a word or a brand name?  From the French "totalisateur"?

James A. Landau writes:
>If I remember correctly, it is a brand name of the American Totalizator Company and refers to the mechanical or electrical >calculators (long since replaced by computers, I am sure) that were used to tabulate all the bets so that the odds could be >computed.  Familiarly known as the "Tote board".

RHUD has 1875-80 for "totalizator" and 1885-90 for "totalizer", but Petit Robert, Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, gives 1869 for "totalisateur".

Jan Ivarsson
jan.ivarsson at transedit.st