THE PUNT IN
PRINT

The profession of bookmaking
has enjoyed a long and varied
history. From that day way
back in 1795 when the first
bookmaker set up shop at
Newmarket, England (a Mr
Ogden) to fifteen years later
when Australia’s first official
racemeeting was conducted at
Hyde Park in Sydney (and yes,
bookies were present!) and
beyond to the 21st century,
bookmakers have been both
respected and loathed by the
racing public.

Many a great story has centred around
the bookmaker and it is an interesting
exercise to leaf though racing books to
see how they (and the punt in general)
have been perceived throughout the
years.

“People love all the bobbing and
weaving and dancing around looking for
a price, the feeling that they are doing
something terribly shrewd and daring,
above all the sense that they are in
personal, head-to-head combat with the
bookmaker.”

(“Newmarket”, Laura Thompson 2000)

“Betting is a grand game for the
professional, who has the stomach for it;
for the bookmaker, who makes a living at
it; and for the racing fan, if he has a little
spare cash and doesn’t mind losing it.
But there is no easy money in it.”
“ Caution and suspicion should be his
(the bookmaker’s) watchwords. Danger
threatens him from all sorts of
unsuspected quarters. Of course, the
‘ boys’ are constantly thinking up new
ways of getting ‘on’ after the result of
the race is known to them, and he
should be continually alert for their
machinations. But it is far more difficult
to prepare against the sort of betrayal
which takes place very, very
occasionally, when a clerk discovers a
way to make false entries in his ledgers
without being found out and pockets
the proceeds. However, don’t pity the
poor bookmaker too much. His profit is

not so large as people think, but he
gets by.”
(“The Racing Game”, R Rodrigo 1958)

“Bookmakers are the damned. They are
the enemy. For the punter to duel with
them on the track and beat them at the
game of figures — to win and then hold
their money — provides one of life’s
sweetest pleasures.”

“On the Friday the bookies’ odds keep
mesmerising and taunting the punter and
by the Saturday they have become an
irresistible dare.”

“The early bookmakers must have been a
weird assortment. They needed magnetic
personalities and the capacity for steelnerved
wagering, and although some
were a blight on the game others became
national identities who generated
increased interest in the sport.”

(“A Racing Heart”, Neville Penton 1987)

“Illegal off-course betting had been
prevalent in Australia for decades. The
only way to bet legally on horses was
to go to the track. The increased
coverage of racing in the daily
newspapers and through race calls
saw off-course betting become
rampant. ‘SP’ (starting price)
bookmakers operated out of pubs,
billiard halls, barber shops and, in
some places, betting shops with a
street frontage. As racing became a
socially acceptable pursuit, people who
would not dream of breaking the law in
any other respect would quite happily
put a few shillings down on a couple of
horses of a Saturday. It was part of the
Australian way of life.”

(“Phar Lap”, Geoff Armstrong and Peter
Thompson 2000)

“In ninety-nine towns out of a hundred it
is the bookmaker who owns the longest,
most powerful and most luxurious car,
smokes the best cigars, drinks the most
champagne and is about the only person
who knows where the next pot of caviar is
coming from. Everybody can see this, but
nevertheless the majority will keep on
betting.”

(by Jack Leach 1961 — “The Faber Book
of the Turf”, John Hislop and David
Swannell 1990)

“Indeed, the bookie’s calling is akin to the
priesthood, Lonely, ascetic, steeped in the
mystic rites of tic-tac, and arcane
calculation, He is a keeper of men’s
souls, an upholder of the moral law.
Particularly the one about the payment of
debts. Stoical in the face of loss or gain,
he epitomises Kipling’s ideal of treating
those two imposters, Triumph or Disaster,
just the same. Indeed he can often be
seen to laugh openly at Disaster,
particularly if he has managed to ‘lay-off’
with some other kindly fellow-bookie
eager to lighten his load.”

“Most bookmakers have mothers, in
whom they take a kindly interest. Some
also treat dogs and other dumb animals
pretty well, extending such consideration
even to punters, on occasion.”

(“To Horse! To Horse!” — a satirical look
at racing by Terry Wogan and Tony
Fairburn 1982)

“As for the ethics of gambling, I think
those moral theologians are right who
maintain that in this instinct of the human
mind there is no essential evil, provided
firstly that a man does not risk more than
he would be entitled to spend on any
legitimate amusement according to his
position and duties in life and secondly
that all parties to the transaction have a
fair chance of winning. Thus, it would be
a sin to bet on what we know to be a
certainty; but that is a sin which few of us
are ever likely to commit on a
racecourse.”

(“Horsesense” Clive Inglis 1950)

“The bookmaker on a great scale,
attended by his secretaries (he is often
perfectly illiterate) has more
correspondence, receives and
despatches more telegrams, exercises a
great deal more influence, than an
ordinary country banker.”

(S Sidney, late 1800’s, quoted in “More
Horsesense” Clive Inglis 1959)

“Bookmaker: Kindly fellow who stands
under an umbrella. His humble existence
is maintained entirely through the
munificence of the punters.”

( “The Horse-Racing Dictionary,” Keith
Dunstan 1985).