Summary
Geertz describes the way that wagering in Balinese cock fighting occurs: there are two kinds of bets (known as "toh"). One bet is the center bet between the owners of the cocks and a handful of allies. At the same time, numerous side bets emerge in the crowd before the fight begins.
The center bet is structured and determined, while the side bets are more improvisational and chaotic. Geertz compares the side betting to the pre-digital stock exchange, as betters favoring the underdog find betters favoring the favorite and determine the wager based on shouting and hand gestures.
Notably, after the fight, all bets are immediately paid. Geertz explains that in the 57 fights he watched, he never saw a dispute over a wager in the crowd.
Geertz goes on to argue that wagering is the link he sees between cockfighting and the broader Balinese culture.
He explains that, though the center bet and side bets may seem incongruous, they are actually part of a larger system in which the center bet dictates and complicates the side bets.
When the center bet is large, more effort is put in to making the cocks evenly matched. This phenomenon pulls the side bets toward the short end of the scale.
Geertz notes that this relationship between the center bet and the side bets defines what is important to the Balinese about cockfighting, saying, "the center bet is a means, a device, for creating 'interesting,' 'deep' matches, not the reason, or at least not the main reason, why they are interesting" (15).
Analysis
After describing the logistics of the cockfight itself, Geertz turns to what is arguably the most important component discussed in his essay: cockfight wagering. Again, he provides detailed descriptions of how betting works for small matches, medium matches, and large ones.
In the first half of this section, Geertz emphasize the apparent disparity between the bets happening inside the ring (between handlers, owners, and their allies) and those happening among the crowd. The bets inside the ring ("center bets") are well-regulated and determined, while the bets among the crowd evolve in a much more chaotic fashion.
Geertz focuses on this disparity to emphasize his own perspective as a foreign spectator of cockfight wagering: the center bets and the side bets appeared to Geertz, at least at first, to be operating in relative isolation of one another.
But, in the second half of this section, Geertz focuses on challenging that perception and dispelling the myth that the two betting "worlds" are unrelated, or that one is more sophisticated than the other. Indeed, he provides more details to show how the center bets and side bets are intimately, and inextricably, connected. Larger center bets generally reflect equal favor between the two cocks, and this paradigm influences the side bets in a way that may not be immediately recognizable.
When Geertz concludes the section by referring to the center bet as a "device" to create "interesting" matches, he starts to lay out the interpretive work he will do in the final sections of that essay. That is, Geertz begins providing readers with a nuanced and multivalent "reading" of cockfighting, in which symbolism and abstraction take precedence over immediate observation and data.
