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Email:lesley@bosmagazine fsnet.co.uk


Copy date for the January/February edition is


10th January 2012


Opinions expressed in this publication should not be regarded as the official view of BOS Magazine except where stated.


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Book Review by Chris Pitt Down the


Bookies by John Samuel


ORIGINALLY


‘TWOScore & Ten’, the title of this book has been changed to ‘Down the Bookies’. It charts the history of Licensed Betting Offices since they became legal 50 years ago, on May 1, 1961, and there is nobody better qualified to do so than John Samuels, who worked in bookmaking all his life before joining the IBAS team. The book is partly autobiographical and is all the better for that because it’s a story seen through the eyes of someone who was there at the coal face to witness half a century of changes within the betting industry. Samuels started out, aged 16,


in the credit control department of Ladbrokes’ office in Soho, not long after shops had been legalised. From there he joined North Woolwich bookmaker Connor’s, where he “learned all he needed to know about bookmaking”. He later became area manager of Mecca’s City Area in Central London and was with William Hill for more than 30 years. Divided into decades, the


CALLED


three chapters provide similarly comprehensive reviews of the 1970s to the 1990s, from the formation of BOLA and the ABB to the demise of the Sporting Life, Dettori day at Ascot, TV screens, the National Lottery and the birth of 49s. As the author notes: “The millennium brought a new dawn but few could have guessed what radical changes and initiatives lay ahead.” And how right he is, with the advent of exchanges, the inexorable rise of internet betting, FOBTs, TurfTV, virtual racing, arbing, GamCare, the smoking ban and, of course, the Gambling Commission. Samuels covers the seedier


book begins with the 1960s and recalls the early days of shops, telling of clock bags, the birth of the levy scheme, the imposition of betting tax, Foinavon’s Grand National and the foot


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38 November/December 2011 BOS Magazine Please mention BOS Magazine when replying to advertisements


side: dishonest managers, fraudulent punters, money laundering, illegal betting, match fixing, legendary coups such as Gay Future and Yellow Sam in horse racing, and those at Dagenham and Rochester


and mouth epidemic. Football betting, despite England’s 1966 World Cup triumph, was then mostly confined to pools, the result of the government having imposed a punitive fixed odds betting tax of 25 per cent on stakes. The following


greyhounds. He also tells of the many characters, such as John Banks, Bob Green and Cyril Stein, and recalls seeing Prince Monolulu at Hackney dogs, where, somewhat bizarrely, he’d still “gotta horse”. Looking ahead to the next


50 years, Samuels makes some suggestions as to what the betting industry may be like, while remarking: “The joy of writing about the next 50 years is that I will not be around to be told I got it all wrong!”n


‘Down the Bookies: The first 50 years of betting shops’ is published by Racing Post books and costs £18.99. It is available from www. racingpost.com/shop and all good bookshops.


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