City Council President Sheila Dixon won and lost yesterday when Mayor Martin O'Malley announced that he would not run for governor.

She lost the chance for promotion that the City Charter guarantees to any council president when a vacancy opens in the city's top office.

But she won $150 in bets with three friends, who wagered $50 each that O'Malley would enter the race. Dixon wouldn't identify her three fellow gamblers - other than to say they weren't O'Malley or Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, whom O'Malley might have challenged for governor.

"I might use the money to buy some shoes," Dixon said, smiling during an interview in her office yesterday. "I have a foot fetish ... and I'm looking for another pair, maybe something in cream."

Dixon's joke hinted at a serious issue: She believes she has moved beyond the days when, as a hot-headed city councilwoman from West Baltimore, she brandished a shoe in a racially charged political argument in 1991.

Since winning the City Council presidency in 1999, Dixon has tried to rein in her public displays of emotion and broaden her role to work as a broker of compromise.

She often works closely with O'Malley, a former political foe, and she rarely criticizes the mayor in public. This style puts her in contrast with many past council presidents, including Lawrence A. Bell III and Mary Pat Clarke, who were vocal critics and political rivals of the mayors then in office.

Dixon said yesterday that she has "no plans" to run against O'Malley if he decides to seek re-election in 2004. But she said she would run if O'Malley decides not to, and added that nothing is certain with the mayoral election so far off.

"I think it's the best thing for Baltimore that O'Malley is not running for governor," said Dixon, who was informed by O'Malley by phone yesterday morning. "He's in the middle of a term, and I know that he really wants to see what he's started continue, especially with the crime rate reductions and the spark of new economic development in the city."

The political future of the city remains unclear with the 2004 mayoral elections still 2 1/2 years away, several political observers said yesterday.

But if O'Malley runs for re-election, and Dixon doesn't run against him, that could create an opportunity for city Comptroller Joan M. Pratt to run for the office, said Julius Henson, the combative political consultant who ran Pratt's successful 1995 campaign for comptroller.

Henson said Dixon's alliance with O'Malley has hurt her.

"She [Dixon] believes that in order to be successful in Baltimore, she has to court the white vote," Henson said. "But ... people want someone to have a mind and a brain of her own."

Others, including state Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, a Baltimore Democrat, praised Dixon for cooperating with O'Malley and working to improve the city.

"I think that Sheila is doing a very fine job as City Council president, and if she has aspirations for higher office in the future, that is still open to her," McFadden said.

Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, said he doesn't believe O'Malley's announcement yesterday will hurt Dixon's political career, even though it means she won't become mayor in November as she would have if O'Malley had won election as governor.

"I've known Sheila long enough to know she doesn't want anything handed to her. She wants to fight for anything she gets," Mfume said. "She's bright and articulate and has a bright future ahead of her."

A City Council member representing the west side's 4th District from 1987 to 1999, Dixon also worked as a teacher in the city public schools and ran a business that imported crafts from Africa.

In addition to heading the City Council, Dixon works for the state government, creating strategies to export locally made products to foreign countries - a dual employment that has elicited criticism from the state ethics commission.

She has a busy schedule, raising two children, 7 and 13, with her husband, a lobbyist for the Maryland Transportation Authority. Like the mayor, she's a fitness fanatic, working out almost every day. But unlike him, she holds a black belt in karate.

Working hand-in-hand with O'Malley over the past 2 1/2 years, Dixon has helped to increase the amount of city business going to minority firms and to direct more money into programs to treat drug addicts and remove lead paint hazards.

But she has also disagreed with his move toward privatization of some city services and his support of Loyola College's plans to expand, against the wishes of some neighbors.

"We have our differences. But we both agreed that if we were going to move this city forward, we would have to work together," Dixon said.