A sozzled writer's take on bookmakers.
Bookmakers receive plenty of criticism. Picture: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
Bookmaking and betting firms are getting a bad rap since they came out of the closet, as it were, and started advertising their products loudly and garishly. There is much tut-tutting about the social ills of problem gambling and the vulnerability of poor people to financial temptations.
If only the poor could be lifted from poverty so that everyone could enjoy a better quality of life under a healthy pace of economic growth … but that’s an argument for economists, politicos and alchemists, maybe.
Meanwhile, racegoers, which in stereotypical thinking are supposed to loathe bookmakers because the greedy blighters siphon off all the money, are actually thanking their lucky stars (or fish?) for the so-called pencil men. For betting firms have ridden to the rescue of horse racing in South Africa by bailing out operators who were sinking under the pressures of taxation, publicity-starvation, unmanaged competition and gormless popular culture.
So, this is probably a good time to turn to the “wisdom” of Jeffrey Bernard, a popular British columnist of the late 20th century, who made a name for himself with epic drinking and an unhealthy interest in horse racing – among other dissolute activities.
This is what Bernard once observed about bookies – unusually at the time:
“I spent a day at Sandown Park once and lost money all day long on all six races. After the last race, which cleaned me out, I approached [bookmaker] John Bank and asked if he could please lend me the train fare back to Waterloo… He just motioned to his clerk to give me a bundle of money and said, with a friendly shrug, ‘Have a taxi all the way.’
“The bad image of bookmakers is largely outdated. These days they are pretty straightforward businessmen and, with very few exceptions … are decent, honest people.
“Victor Chandler Senior … was a particularly decent and honest example… I used to approach him and say, ‘Hello Victor, let’s have a drink,’ I would hear him muttering, ‘Good news boys, here comes the lunch money’.
“I once owed Victor about 20 quid, a fortune for me then and nothing to him. I’d been avoiding him for weeks. One day I saw him come into the Members’ Bar at Newbury so, like an idiot, which I was, I pretended I’d dropped something and hid under the table. After three minutes a hand appeared bearing an enormous whisky. Victor’s face followed and met mine: ‘I thought you might be thirsty, Have a drink, Jeff.’
“He was a good man. One Christmas, a man from his firm came round to my flat and delivered me an entire crate of Louis Roederer Crystal. I said to my then wife, ‘What a marvellous man Victor is. Fancy sending me a crate of champagned of that quality.’ She said: ‘You bloody idiot. That crate probably cost you £5,000’.”
Cheers to the scribblers.
