BACK WHEN JIMMY KNEW THE ODDS
It’s September and the footy finals are on, but I won’t be having a bet.
That’s because I reckon the way betting is heading in this country is almost criminal. And I should know, because my Dad was a criminal.
My grandfather was a horse trainer and my father, James Bernard Donohoe, broke the law regularly – pretty much every Saturday – by ringing his SP bookmaker at Randwick. Off-course betting was illegal back in those days.
Not that Dad took any notice. He rang a bloke who knew a bloke with a bag at the track and that’s where the deal went down.
My old man loved the punt, but he was never an addict. When he was “rollin’ in it” he’d bet big. When he was less than flush, he’d put a couple of bucks on.
Melbourne Cup day, 1960.
He always went to the races fully booted and spurred, freshly shaven, Windsor knot resplendent.
He’d park the Valiant hardtop in the AJC committee members’ parking spots (“take the secretary spot, Jimmy. He’s overseas”). And there it would be, the Flash Harry vehicle, in between the Bentleys and Rollers and bringing down the tone of the whole establishment.
It wasn’t because Dad was “important” that he bagged the coveted spot, but because he was “connected”. You see, my father knew everyone at Randwick and truly liked most of them…or at least he was charitable enough see their best side.
Dad loved racing. Everything about it. The horses, sure, but they were almost a sideshow to the main game. It was the people he loved – from the parking blokes to the toffs in the members and everyone in betweeen. He, in turn, was well regarded by them.
The track – the sights, the sounds, friendship, drama and conviviality – was the conversation of his life. He had a deep and abiding passion for my family’s heritage and those in the industry.
When my Dad gambled, it was a cultural pursuit. Which is the opposite to what we have today with online betting.
No longer do you get decked out to go to the track or put on your club colours to get to the footy game. No friendship, no conversation, no connection with the wider world. You have the privacy of your smartphone, no socialising required…for God’s sake even the pokies at least require that you have a shower, comb your hair and get dressed! (And as for that TV ad showing the guys being longingly eyed over by gorgeous girls? Well not at my pub!)
Instead, in this brave new world of gambling, you sit at home, alone, and calculate the numbers. To me, that’s the true hideousness of the modern “bet”.
And (even more insidious) what ability do you have to make an educated punt? At least when you’re at the track you can see and touch horesflesh, talk to a trainer. Same at the footy ground when you get the sniff of liniment from the stand and know which player is pulling up lame, no matter what the coach says.
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12 Responses to this article
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Twiggy September 20, 2012
Great article. My Dad was the same. Loved the ponies, loved the races. He frequented Rosehill. He would study the form guide on a Friday night and analyse the bejesus out of every page. If he wasn’t at the races, he was sitting at the kitchen table with his little transistor radio held tightly to his ear. Woe betide you if you made a peep during a race. The hand would fly up and he would roar ‘shush!!!!’. It wasn’t an ideal childhood and not the greatest of examples of fatherhood but hey, there was always food on the table and clothes on our back. $1 each way was a typical bet and if he had a win we would head off to the local Chinese to have a slap up meal with the money.
Today is seems like the bastards have taken away the sport, the fun in an effort to just drain people’s pockets more efficiently. It makes me sick to see footy commentators flogging betting websites on tv. No shame. -
MICK September 20, 2012
Great Brendan. Love it. What has happened when things that begin as ways for people to live, enjoy one anothers’ company, engage in ways to turn a dollar and thrive have become ways that are driven by the opportunity for governments to exonerate themselves from providing services from revenues earnt from real productivity. Sport is always and everywhere a social event. Of course, now and always, there are ways to make a bit on the side without the Tax Man seeing. So what? But today it’s been corporatised and the social element has been killed. Going to the races today is a collector’s item. It’s about the solitary tragedy followed by the government share. But it can’t last because without a feel for the experience, the passion will die. it will focus elsewhere and sure as the sun rises, the tax man will be there to collect, unaware of what damage his previous visit has done.
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Aeron Winters September 20, 2012
I agree with everything you have said Brendan. Melbourne cup aside (because I live too far away to attend, but I do watch on telly) I never bet except on the rare occasion when to go to the races. We only ever make minimum bets, but it’s the whole atmosphere of being there, all dolled up complete with fascinator in the hair, watching the horses and cheering them on to victory that makes it worth doing. I hate all the commercials that we are inundated with while watching the footy now (go the bunnies!) and can only imagine the damage it is doing to those who have an addiction. It just makes it all too easy for them feed that addiction.
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Kerry C September 20, 2012
You hit the nail on the head Brendan. I remember every saturday, my Dad would take me to the “Harbord Hilton” to see his mate the bookie to put a couple of “bob” on. I was bribed with numerous pink lemonades and a jam roll not to tell Mum that we actually had NOT been for a long walk.
I think it’s an absolute disgrace that the betting scores now come up on the screen while games are in progress.
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Ro. Watson September 20, 2012
I love that pic of the girls all out on Melbourne Cup Day…
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Paul September 20, 2012
Wow, what a completely one sided article.
Firstly, the big legitimate online bookies pay license fees to the NRL, AFL, racing bodies, you name it. It can be a percentage of turnover, a percent of profits, or a combination of both. For the biggest bookies this adds up to millions of dollars a year. Yet there is nothing to stop an Aus punter betting with an overseas agency, who in return will contribute nothing back to the sporting codes they bet on, nor pays any tax to the Australian government. Australian bookmakers do both.
Familes have gone broke, marriages have broken up and kids gone without at Christmas long before online gambling came around – to suggest this will happen moreso this year than ever before because of online gambling is, to use racing parlance – “blinkered”. I’m yet to read a story about a punter who had one too many bets so came home and belted his family.
And to suggest playing pokies is morally better than online gambling because you have to look and smell good to do it, well I don’t even know where to start with that. People can do and win long run with online gambliing. I’ve never heard of a professional poker machine player.
But hey, who am I to stand in the face of hating the game, and not the player. Far be it for anyone to take responsibility for their own actions, ever.
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sue bell September 20, 2012
my grandfather was a SP Bookie. He taught me the punter never wins.
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RobynMarie September 20, 2012
Great article, and I love that add on telly you’re talking about. No woman in her right mind would be looking at those men like that. They are more likely to be thinking a) Gamblers! Stay right away from that or b) get a drink off them quick cos that cash is going to be gone as soon as. How can anyone actually watch the game with all those updates and I particularly hate the commentaters giving the odds. I always think of the problem gambler and how it must affect them, every couple of minutes the temptation is back, calling them.
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Benison O'Reilly September 20, 2012
Loathed those Robbie Waterhouse ads that kept cropping up during the Olympics. I kept hoping he’d somehow be trampled by the horses! Sorry, but Waterhouse and his cronies are parasites. Nothing good about online gambling whatsoever. I won’t even but lottery tickets.
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Mark D September 21, 2012
That’s not OUR dad you were talking about, was it Brendo. The old man never broke the law. The cops were at the bar with him, dropping a few quid on the ponies with his bookie, taking a return whether they won or lost. Can’t get more legal than police-endorsed.
Nice story, bro. So true.
