Harry L. Straus

Who was Harry L. Straus?

Harry L. Straus, born Henry Lobe Straus, was an American electrical engineer, horse and cattle breeder, sportsman, entrepreneur and computer pioneer. Straus was a 1913 graduate of the Baltimore City College high school and a graduate electrical engineer of Johns Hopkins University.

On April 26, 1927, Harry Straus was at a racetrack in Havre de Grace, Maryland. He had bet $10 on a horse showing twelve-to-one odds. The horse won, and Straus expected to collect about $120. However, the final odds, announced 10 minutes after the race, were less than four-to-one, and he collected only $36. Disappointed, Straus decided to do something about it. A machine for calculating parimutuel odds, issuing tickets, and showing payouts on horse races was called a totalisator; George Julius had invented a mechanical version that was first used in New Zealand in 1913. Straus devised an "electromechanical totalisator".

Straus received help from General Electric's Remote Control Division, who supplied the electric relays and rotary switches to compute odds. After he struggled for several years to market his invention and compete with electric totalisators used in Britain, Pimlico Race Course installed a partial system in 1930, and Arlington Park racecourse, Chicago, Illinois, installed the United States' first complete all-electric totalisator, from Straus's company, in 1933.