My wife was a passenger on both the Cunard's Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary in June and August 1957, and she remembers there was a special room on the ship where first class passengers gathered after dinner to enjoy "friendly" betting on horse races. It was quite a spectacle since everyone wore their finest clothes and the production was like none other that she had attended, but children were not allowed to bet. Here's how it worked: A field of 6 wooden-constructed horses were on an elaborate track in all the bright regalia of horse racing. There was an order to how you won the bet and based on using a metal cage and two dies. Dealer would toss the cage that was on a handle multiple times and when he put it down read the colored die as the horse's number and the white die indicated how far the horse progressed on the track (four moved four spaces) At the betting window, the players bought pieces of paper with the horse's name and number for different value bets. At end of each race, players exchanged tickets for cash. She was a traveling companion for another 11-year-old girl whose dad owned the great racing horse -- Gallant Man -- who almost won the triple crown on the last leg of the three races by pulling up short of the victory pole when hall-of-famer jockey Willie Shoemaker stood up in the saddle. His misjudgement of the finish pole causing Iron Liege ridden by Bill Hartak to win by a nose. The traveling trio returned to the U.S. after spending three months touring Europe and returned to the U.S. aboard the Queen Elizabeth. When we visited Long Beach a couple years ago we went onboard Queen Mary for a nostalgic visit as my wife recalled the traumatic death of a child who drowned in the inside swimming pool several years earlier, and the place was deemed haunted and at certain times you could hear a child cry for help. She and her friend were in the pool when they thought they heard "the child" crying and quickly left the pool never to return. There is a printed sign in the pool area today that notes the child drowning.
Her adventures aboard Queen Mary were during the time when Cunard operated a "three class system" that separated passengers by tickets purchased for the Atlantic crossing. They were the only two kids in "First Class" and their entertainment was around adults instead of other kids aboard on different decks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallant_Man#Performance_at_Kentucky_Derby