George E. Smith (gambler)

George Elsworth Smith was an American gambler and Thoroughbred horse racing enthusiast who became a multimillionaire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Smith was given the nickname Pittsburgh Phil in 1885 by Chicago gambler William Silver Bill Riley to differentiate him from the other Smiths that also frequented Rileys pool halls. Pittsburgh Phil is considered by many handicappers to have been an expert strategist, winning large sums of money at a time when racing statistic publications, such as The Daily Racing Form, were not widely available. At the time of his death from tuberculosis in 1905, he had amassed a fortune worth 3,250,000, which is comparable to US 85,595,370 today. His racing Maxims, published posthumously in 1908, are considered to be the foundations of many modern handicapping strategies and formulas.

George Elsworth Smith was born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania in 1862 to Elizabeth and Christian Smith. The Smith family also included two sisters, Annie and Elizabeth, and another son, William C. Smith, that was a few years younger than George Smith. His mother was originally from Ireland and emigrated to the United States in 1857, and his father was a carpenter from Baden, Germany. Eliza remarried after Christian Smiths death in the early 1870s to retail grocer Edward Downing, who died in the 1880s. She remarried a second time on November 20, 1906 to real estate and coal developer Thomas S. Wood after George Smiths death.

Source: Wikipedia