This drawing was published in L'Illustration of 22 March 1890, at a time when the French had not determined on a policy about betting. Bookmakers were still operating, under growing thret of extinction, on the racecourses; the Rue Hanovre betting shops had been closed down; the pari-mutuel had not been given official recognition or its monopoly of on-course betting. Certain tobacconists acted as agents, neither legalized nor quite illegal, for M. Oller's company. They continued to do so illegally after 1891, and legally from 1930. The History of Horse Racing by Roger Longrigg, page 187.