Asked and Answered: Cerebrus

[heath]

You asked a very good question in another thread. I am answering here because there seems to be no civility and no honest attempt to address what you said.

You asked:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:[/size]<HR>
But what I don't understand is the need for some Americans to re-affirm to the world that they are "the GREATEST and most POWERFUL country in the world." Let the other countries decide that for themselves, and believe me, the people here in Canada are getting a little sick and tired of the overzealous displays of patriotism. To many Americans, the mere fact that they could probably take over the whole world with their sheer military might, is enough to justify in their minds that they are the "greatest" country in the world. If you think that miltary might and prowess makes you a great country, then you definitely need to get your priorities straightened out. Besides if you truly are the greatest country in the world, why do many posters here have to continually re-affirm that in their posts? Could it be that they believe the world needs more convincing? Because belive me, the world does need more convincing. Or perhaps these posters need to keep repeating that belief to themselves because they too need convincing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why constantly re-affirm?

I do it for 2 reasons.

1. I see Washington and politcians for what they are. I see the atrocities and backwards thinking they commit often in the names of justice.

I love this country and the principles on which it was founded. My affirmation is a self-medicating approach to the simple truth: "Despite the efforts of a bunch of self-serving criminals in Washington, America still shines bright as the greatest country in the world."

2. I say it because its true and because I am grateful I wasn't born in Russia or Pakistan or even Canada. I am grateful for this land and the opportunities it affords me.

America is the greatest country in the world IN-SPITE of the actions of our governments, not because of it. It also has nothing to do with our current ranking as the one and only super-power.

Perhaps my definition of "great" doesn't jive with yours.

Let me describe why I think America is the greatest country in the world:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:[/size]<HR>
In our very young history, the United States of America has become the greatest country in the history of the world.

We've single-handedly improved the quality of life for the entire planet.

We gave the world the Airplane, the telephone/telegraph, the stove, the laser, the transistor and the computer chip.

We gave the world an assembly line process to mass produce automobiles. We discovered the nature of electricity, invented sports betting and gave the world The Internet.

The people below the poverty level in the United States have living quarters bigger than the middle income wage earner in France.

We live longer, better and more free than anyone every thought about living 200+ years ago before this great nation was founded.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

When I originally made the above statement, I forgot to mention a few other things that might define "great".

Anyone involved involved sports betting that shares your view might want to reconsider.

In addition to inventing the pointspread, the entire offshore sports betting universe revolves around American sports and American bettors (I am not including BMs in England and Soccer, Cricket, etc).

All of a sudden, all over the globe, bookmakers aren't making much money.

Yes, the same exiled Bookmakers are very much in debted to the very same country that exiled them.

You see, without the flow of cash from US Citizens to the operators of sports books offshroe and in Canada, there wouldn't be much left to this industry.

There is much I have missed. For instance, the free market system did something amazing last year:

We mapped the human genome. Our government sponsored "Human Genome Project" was faltering (like similar projects all over the world). The government sponsored program, downtrodden with bureaucracy, couldn't get funding and grants for some of the newer methods that were being tested.

Several private companies, free of these burdens, were able to improve effeciency, and got the human genome mapped in unbelieavable time.

This is the greatest medical accomplishment the world has ever seen. Its here faster because free market principals were applied. The ability to treat and prevent disease will be forever altered.

I could go on and on and on but hopefully I given you a decent answer.

Sure, your home country isn't a bad place. A couple of sports books are being allowed to operate in one of your provinces and we are grateful for that.

I wouldn't want to get sick in Canada, but it ain't bad. If it makes you feel any better, you probably live in the second greatest country in the world.

However, 2 buildings and 30,000 people were destroyed and the entire civilized world has almost stopped.

Why? Because those 30,000 people belonged to the greatest country in the world. Those 2 buildings sat in the greatest country in the world and were bright and shining beacons to the simple truths that have made this country what it is.

Commerce, trade, free-enterprise...

They stood as symbols for improved quality of life through capitalism. They stood for freedom, opportunity and empowerment.

Might not mean much to you. Maybe you don't understand it, but I think you do.

My government dissapoints and hurts me every time I turn on the television, but I've got to "dance with the one that brung me".

Maybe one day Canada will privatize health care (they already did that for Air Traffic Controllers) and quit taxing its citizens to death.

Maybe one day Quebec will quit engaging in Facism, racism, oppressive labor laws and controls on free speech.

Until then, 2nd place ain't all that bad. It ain't love, but it ain't bad.

Of course it ain't America either.

Heath


[This message has been edited by heath (edited 09-13-2001).]

[olddog]

Well stated, Heath. I think most of us that are extolling America are praising the people rather than the government and shady politicians. The heroism I have seen and heard about in the last couple of days has totally renewed my faith in this great country--despite its flaws.

[pmj18]

Heath...Great post, I couldn't agree with you more. I believe most Canadians support us and cerebus was just talking out of his ass.

[The Actuary]

Excellent post,

Least of which 75% of all world commerce is in US greenbacks.

[heath]

The guy asked a reasonable question.

Ultimately it depends on what your definition of great is. If "great" == "sand" then Saudi Arabia is the greatest country in the world. If "great" == "opression of free speech, the exchange of ideas and trade" then China would be your choice.

This country is far from perfect. But if freedom from opression and racism is your definition, then no country has come further or done more to recognize the soverign, individual rights of all people, regardless of creed than this country.

If your definition of freedom includes freedome of expression (including speech, which language to speak, flag burning or art), then look no further.

If "great" is defined by opportunity, look no further. If "great" is defined by wealth, quality of life or free trade, look no further.

If your definition includes mixture of cultures, races and ethnicity living in harmony, look no further.

If your definition includes the best health care or advances in the technology sector, look no further.

If your definition includes the best medical schools and universities in the world, look no further.

If your definition includes a LACK of state controlled media and a free press, look no further.

Its not even close. We can do better. That's what amazes me. We screw so much up, but remain the best.

[This message has been edited by heath (edited 09-13-2001).]

[AussieVamp2]

Invented sports betting?

How can anywhere that is 200 years old possibly have invented that?

[OZ]

AV

that what i said last time

you can have everything but sportsbetting

[heath]

AV and Oz,

Yes we invented sports betting.

If it wasn't American that hung the first number on a sporting event, pounded his chest and announced to the world they were open for bidness, then who was it?

Maybe some ancient Romans bet on which Christian would die last when they fed them to the lions, but for institutionalized, consumer based sports betting, it was us.

Stings like a bitch, I know.

[AussieVamp2]

there's a good example

how many bookies do you think catered to the masses in Rome?

[AussieVamp2]

You have been stung by a bitch often then, presumably ?

[AussieVamp2]

what is non-consumer based sports betting?

betting between individuals?

[AussieVamp2]

and some things you probably didn't know


Rowing’s origins reach back into early civilization. There is evidence to suggest that the Phoenicians and Egyptians raced barges on the Nile as early as 2500 BC. Further east, China and Southeast Asia had the same idea. At around 450 BC, the Greeks and Romans began using rowing as a means to adventure, prosperity and warfare. Boats with the best oarsmen had a distinct advantage. During this period, the Greeks made an important technical innovation by fixing the oar to a fulcrum while the engineering-minded Romans exploited the power and efficiency provided by dozens of captive slaves pulling together to the beat of a drum. Those ancient principles are still evident in rowing sculls and coxed boats.


18th century sculling boat.
Modern rowing equipment and regattas originated in England. The earliest sculling race took place on the Thames River in 1715, organized by a popular Irish actor named Thomas Doggett in appreciation of the oarsmen who used to ferry him back and forth across the river. By the 1770s, rowing regattas were common all over England as the public became enamoured with the lure of racing and the wagering it sparked – an association established in the sport’s beginnings that would only grow stronger. As the British began emigrating to the New World, they brought rowing with them, introducing it to the colonies in the early part of the 19th century. In fact, the oldest continuous sporting event in North America is the Quidi Vidi Lake regatta near St. John’s, Newfoundland, which began in 1818. Shortly thereafter, regattas began springing up throughout the Maritimes, and by the 1840s, had spread to Upper Canada where the sport, because of the money made from betting, took on professional and international status. Canadians began to assert their prominence in rowing, competing in regattas in Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large centres.

The Paris Four


In 1867 four New Brunswickers beat Europe's best. They came to be known as "The Paris Four".
Canada made a huge leap in international rowing stature when a crew of four New Brunswickers, traveled to Paris in 1867 for their International Exposition. The "Paris Four," as they came to be known, defeated the best European crews at the time, including one from London and one from Oxford University. The victory over the English crews was especially sweet because it was also a symbolic win for the upstart "colonials" and their unfashionable boats and appearance. The Paris Four remained undefeated for the next couple of years but more than that, they helped establish Canada’s reputation as a credible rowing nation.

The Boy in Blue


By then, rowing had become the most popular sport in the world, attracting big prize money and heavy newspaper coverage. It also produced Canada’s first superstar: Ned Hanlan, one of the most famous athletes in the world in the 19th century. Hanlan was the son of poor Irish immigrants who settled on the Toronto Islands where his father, John Hanlan, built a hotel. (Hanlan’s Point is actually named after the hotel, not for Ned’s rowing. The city did, however, name a ferryboat after him.) Hanlan, known as the "Boy in Blue," because of the colours he wore, dominated rowing races throughout northeastern Canada and the U.S., amassing an astonishing career record of 344 wins and six losses from the early 1870s to the mid-1880s. He was world champion in the single sculls six times.


Canada's first international superstar, Ned Hanlon.
The biggest race in Hanlan’s career took place in England on the River Thames in 1880 against the reigning world champion from Australia, Edward Trickett. The race generated an enormous amount of betting action – more than $100,000; the equivalent of between $10-20 million today. Most bettors didn’t give Hanlan, at 5’-8" and 155 pounds, much of a chance against the 6’-4", 200-lb. Trickett. Hanlan, however, had an ace up his sleeve: During the 1870s, he was privately working out on a sliding seat – an innovation that would change the course of the sport, dramatically improving efficiency by harnessing the power supplied by the legs. Hanlan wasn’t the first to use a sliding seat, but he was the first to master it.

Hanlan officially beat Trickett by seven seconds but it was actually much worse than that. He toyed with him by engaging in a little showboating along the course. As was his style, Hanlan rowed out to a healthy lead, paused to wave to the crowd and then inexplicably slumped in his seat and drifted. When he decided Trickett was close enough, Hanlan, smiling, began pulling away again, this time zigzagging down the course, using just one oar at a time. Trickett was not amused by Hanlan’s antics and refused to see anyone after the race.

Rise of Amateurism

Hanlan’s heroics as an oarsman inspired the next generation of Canada’s rowers and cemented Canada’s rowing status. However, by the 1890s, a growing rift between professional and amateur rowers developed. The amateurs viewed professional races not as true tests of an athlete’s abilities, but as spectacles for bettors. Besides, the amateurs were becoming frustrated at losing to the professionals and those, like fisherman, who rowed for a living. It led to a growth of amateur rowing clubs in North America, Europe and Canada. In 1880, several clubs formed the Canadian Association of Amateur Oarsmen that co-ordinated and regulated the sport of amateur rowing. One of the main rules was that members couldn’t row or do manual labour for a living because it wasn’t in keeping with the true amateur spirit – a development that would, fairly or unfairly, associate rowing with elitism. At any rate, amateur clubs began hosting annual regattas, such as the Henley Regatta in St. Catharines, Ontario that was established in 1903. Gradually, the public switched its loyalty from professional to amateur racing. It wasn’t long before the calibre of the amateurs improved as the retiring ranks of professionals moved into coaching and training amateurs. At the turn of the century, the rowing world had seemingly performed a complete about face by embracing amateurism – just about the same time the modern Olympics began.

[AussieVamp2]

Radio National's The Sports Factor
with Amanda Smith
29/10/99

Death of the Bookie

Summary:

The Spring Racing Carnival is underway, but there's one place where the carnival is all but over in Australian horse-racing, and that's the betting ring.

Once the lords of the racetrack, why are book-makers now a dying breed? Long-time bookies ALF KING, GRAHAM SAMPIERI and racing administrator PAUL BRETTEL muse on the past, present and future of book-making in Australia.

Punter and historian CHRIS McCONVILLE says the beginning of the end for bookies actually came 90 years ago, with an Australian invention that was known then as the "Julius Apparatus". We know it as the tote, and that's how most of us who'll have a flutter on Tuesday's Melbourne Cup will place our bets.

Details or Transcript:

THEME

Amanda Smith: With the Spring Racing Carnival underway, on The Sports Factor we're looking at one place where the carnival is all but over in horse-racing, and that's the betting ring.

THEME

Amanda Smith: It's not that Australians aren't betting any more, nothing could be further from the truth. But chances are, if you're going to have a flutter on the Derby or the Melbourne Cup this year, you'll do it on the tote, not through a bookmaker. And The Sports Factor today considers the demise of the bookies, once the lords of the betting ring.

RACETRACK/CROWD/BUGLE

Alf King: Well I started by working for my father, who was previously a bookmaker, and naturally I followed on, and I enjoyed the game and liked it, and thought it was a pretty good thing to be getting into. And then got my own licence in 1940.

Amanda Smith: That's Alf King, and he's coming up to his 60th year as a bookmaker, the longest-serving in Victoria. Which makes Alf well-qualified to compare the racing game of the past with the present.

Alf King: We had it so much easier in those days than we have today. The bookie of yesterday (I'm speaking of the '30s and '40s) their expenses were negligible. As it is today, the turnover tax, which came in here in 1956, it's been a terrible burden on bookmakers. Also the tote made big inroads into our holdings, and consequently we're finding it very difficult to compete with quinellas, trifectas, doubles, you know, we've really got a pretty hard task, the bookie of today. But I must say that the '40s and the '30s I think, were a better bookie, a better bookmaker than today; they were more competitive. In those days we didn't work with boards, and you had to call out the prices. And consequently you got a variation in price. Nowadays if I was to be critical of the bookie of today, it's the fact that there's no variation on his board. You can go to one bookmaker and go along to the 18 on the rails and you'll find there's not much variation. That didn't happen in the past. But then again, as I said, the bookie of today's expenses are just so much higher.

Amanda Smith: Like Alf King, family connections got Graham Sampieri into bookmaking. Although he was destined for a career in pharmacy, a day at the races turned his head in another direction.

Graham Sampieri: Well it would have been the late '40s, early '50s that my father, who was a bit of a punter in those days, I would have probably been in my early teens, he took me I think to Caulfield, the first track I went to. And the main impression that I got was the crowds, particularly in the betting ring, which was the place to be evidently, everybody went to the betting ring. And I can remember in those days I think Albert Smith was the leading bookmaker, he was a flamboyant type, and I think the bookies actually probably had four rings, and there was one on the centre of the track, there was one in the Guineas, there was one half-way up the straight, and then there was the main betting ring where the finish is. But it was just more the size of the crowds, the hum of the place, and I can remember seeing the bookmakers' runners, they were tick-tacking at the time, an art that's gone now. And I was so impressed by the runners I thought maybe I'd like to be one actually. My uncle was an SP bookmaker, or what was called a commission agent in those days, and he worked very close to a bookmaker coming up in those days called John Griffiths, and through that association I gained an odd job at the races at the weekends.

And later on, when I got my bookmaker's licence, it was difficult, particularly when I made the rails in the city; I was a little bit shy, and you had to get up and spruik the odds and whatnot to get business in those days. And that was the main impression that I had. But there was definitely plenty of atmosphere.

Amanda Smith: Graham Sampieri got that bookie's licence in 1966, five years after the legal off-course tote, the TAB was introduced.

Graham Sampieri: It was still in its infancy in those days; it was no threat to bookmaking. Seemed a bit of a joke really, but it didn't turn out that way. But '66 was the decimal currency year actually, when the dollar began vogue, and actually what happened to gambling wasn't good, because people who used to have a pound on a horse then had a dollar, which was half the value.

Amanda Smith: Well at that time, the bookmakers might have thought the introduction of decimal currency was a greater threat to their livelihood than the off-course tote. But that's not how they see it in retrospect, according to veteran bookie, Alf King.

Alf King: The biggest change has been since they've been off-course betting. You see, bookmakers, a punter who wants a bet off-course with a bookmaker, there's a minimum bet of $200. It sounds much too high. If it were $10 bookies would have more customers and they would be more competitive. They've been trying, the bookmakers have been trying to have that rescinded, to a lower denomination. But they've met with no success, and one would have to believe that the tote was playing a part in not wanting them to get that, because the smaller better really does bet on the tote.

Amanda Smith: Now the totalisator system of betting on horse racing actually dates back to the last century.

Chris McConville lectures in Australian Studies at the Sunshine Coast University College, and he's both a practitioner and historian of punting and horse-racing in Australia. But before we get into the invention of the tote, I think we need Chris McConville to explain the fundamental difference between having a bet with a bookmaker and having a bet on the tote.

Chris McConville: From the point of view of the person betting, you get this fixed bet with the bookmaker; you know what you'll get back if it wins. With the tote, you don't get that, you just get the price that comes out when the race starts. From the point of view of the bookmaker or the tote operator, the bookmaker's got to make a judgement about the chances in a race, and so he or she has to frame a list of prices and then adjust them as money comes in. And the bookmaker can lose, as they did last year on the Melbourne Cup with Might and Power, because they had too much money at too short a price on that horse.

On the other hand, with the tote, the tote just can't lose, because it takes all the money that comes in on a race and creates a big pool of money, it then looks at the number of dollars that have been invested on the winning horse, and just divides that into the total pool after taking out its commission, and hands that back as winnings. And so the tote's really just this mathematical process of dividing and distributing, whereas the bookmaker relies on human judgement, and can make money, but can also, as we've seen in the last few years, lose a lot of money.

Amanda Smith: Well now the tote, the early totes in Australia, the illegal totes, go back to the last century, don't they?

Chris McConville: They do. I mean I guess tote is a relatively new word. I mean obviously just meaning totalising everything. The original term was pari-mutuel after the first crude sort of totes that were devised on racetracks in Paris and were brought to Australia in the 1870s, and really all it was I think was for somebody standing up with whole sheets of paper with names of horses, or jam tins with the names or horses on, and people would have a bet on a horse and the operator would put a tick under that name, or throw a slip of paper in the jam tin and at the end of the race count them all up and distribute money to the people with the winning tickets.

The more sophisticated tote that everybody in Australia knows, is probably John Wren's Collingwood tote, which was in Johnson Street, Collingwood at the back of a teashop, and in a woodyard, and was said at the time only one load of wood had ever gone into the yard, and they'd never again come out. Then people used to go down a lane in Sackville Street, Collingwood, and dive through a hole in a tin fence, and they'd line up in this woodyard at screens, and behind the screens there'd be men in white hoods who'd be chalking up prices, and they'd have a bet on horses, and the results would come in, according to anecdote, by carrier pigeon from Flemington or Caulfield and they'd get paid out. And that tote made a fortune for John Wren and became a bit of a legend in the whole of Australia, between the 1890s and 1906 when the Betting Act was changed and Wren moved out of that and went on to become a major businessman in Australia.

Amanda Smith: Well then it's time for you to introduce us to George Julius, Chris, the man who legitimised the tote in Australia. Who was he and what did he do?

Chris McConville: Well I guess he's an unusual person to have invented the tote, since his father was an Anglican Archbishop who was a fiery, anti-gambling crusader in New Zealand. George Julius had been born in England, his father, as well as being an anti-gambling crusader and Archbishop in East London, was also a keen inventor, and invented an automatic tea-maker and then he came to Ballarat as a Bishop and then went to New Zealand as an Archbishop, and while he was the Archbishop, spent a lot of his spare time repairing clocks around the diocese. So young George learned about mechanics and engineering and inventions, working with his father. He studied engineering in Canterbury in New Zealand, came back to Australia, worked in Western Australia as a railway engineer, and invented a vote-counting machine which was extraordinarily accurate and of course that frightened off most politicians. So he then went to Sydney and was taken to the races, and he was fascinated by these cheap, what were called jam-tin tote, with bits of paper being thrown into tins, and thought he could do a better job. And eventually came up with this weird looking contraption with bicycle chains and gear levers, and wheels locking in together, which would count up bets and distribute winnings, and could display dividends as they changed during the course of betting. And he eventually electrified that, and that became adopted in trotting tracks in New Zealand in 1913, and then was put onto Australian racetracks in the 1920s and '30s.

Amanda Smith: And it was called the Julius Apparatus?

Chris McConville: It was initially called the Julius Apparatus.

Amanda Smith: That name wasn't going to stick, was it?

Chris McConville: No, well it became known when it was exported around the world, just simply as the Australian System, so even in some Latin American countries now, gambling with the tote is often just called betting the Australian way.

Amanda Smith: So what drove him to invent it? I mean by what you're saying it sounds like he wasn't a racing man.

Chris McConville: No, he said he'd never seen a horse race until somebody dragged him there when he was a bit depressed about the rejection of his voting machine. He I think was just somebody fascinated by the possibilities of a giant mechanical operation that could be electrically powered, and could produce these accurate returns for ordinary punters. He's very much a democrat. He referred to himself all his life as a simple plumber, and he was quite keen to get a fair go for ordinary Australians, and getting a fair go for punters was something that he thought was part and parcel of his job as a scientist.

Amanda Smith: But it's really only been in the last 15 years or so that George Julius' invention, and legalised off-course betting, have really had an impact on the bookmakers in a major way. For example, in 1984 in New South Wales, there were over 1000 licensed bookmakers; now there are 370. And the rate of decline is similar around the country. But for bookies like Graham Sampieri, who got his licence in 1966, boom times were still ahead.

Graham Sampieri: I don't know whether it was late '70s, (because the '70s was a great time for bookmaking too) or early '80s, it might have been the late '70s, that I think I might have been the first bookmaker in Australia, over the four days of the Spring Carnival, I think I held nearly $6-million, and that was sort of unheard-of, it was probably double what anybody had ever held before. And in those days, if you go to the Show Day meeting at Caulfield, or the Caulfield Cup meeting, Cox Plate Cup Week, you'd go there and take half-a-million dollars a day. And that sort of translates into today's marketplace where if you take $100,000, it's a lot of money. And I think to translate a little bit further on, or compare it with this carnival, I'll possibly be flat out holding a million, $1.2-million for the four days. So in the time that you should have got maybe twice as big, it's sort of diminished by an unbelievable amount of money.

But we had punters then, we had a lot of businessmen. A lot of them took a cavalier approach to punting, they took the bookies on, and there were many, many of them. And bookies could get up and do what they wanted to do basically on each and every race. To hold $50,000 or $100,000 on a race was nothing. And betting commenced very quickly, as soon as you put the market up, betting started, and the movements at the markets were dramatic, it was busy, it was a challenge, if you actually turned a nob in those days, whether it was up or down, you almost caused a stampede. But it was great times, but of course in those times too, what happened was that we got a new era of bookmaker who became an opinion bookie who did a lot of form, and the old traditional way of bookmaking, working to figures, was old hat to them and we had the gambling type of bookie emerge, and of course we had some bookmakers lose heavily and actually from that day on a lot of bookmakers failed, and it was because of this new marketplace basically.

RACE TRACK

Graham Sampieri: It just evolved, and I could actually see it coming, because in the early '80s we had a mini squeeze, and then in the late '80s, things picked up after the early one, and then in the late '80s we had the economy suffered a major financial depression, basically, it was quite heavy, and the dropout of punters who experienced financial difficulties, was tremendous. And ever since, it's declined, and they've never been replaced. I used to work the greyhounds and the trots and country meetings, and I could see the greyhounds fall over, then the trots get less and less, do the same thing, the country race meetings got to a stage where they became unworkable, and it was only a natural progression was going to happen in the city, and it's happened in the city at the mid-week meetings. And now we've got Saturday and Sunday meetings, but the Sunday meetings are more like ghost meetings. So the shrinkage continues, and it doesn't look good for the future of bookmaking, not at all.

Also the main thing that I think has happened to the betting rings, that racing became social. In the early days, everybody that went to races went to the betting ring, it was the centre of activity. But people began to go everywhere but the betting ring, they went into the hospitality tents and you'll see it happen this week now with Cup Week, where everybody will be in the car park or hospitality tents, and there'll be plenty of space in the betting ring. And they go there for the party now, it's become too social.

Amanda Smith: So is there anything that bookmakers could or should have done to better protect their interests and to keep the public wanting to go to the races?

Graham Sampieri: Bookmakers have always been handicapped with the product they offer. We still do the same thing we did 50 years ago: we get up on a box basically, and call the odds, and we still bet win and place, whatever it is, so we've been restricted in most of the things we can do. We've got that problem. I would have addressed a promotion of racing product differently to what's happened over the years. At the present moment, I wouldn't have the overkill that racing's got with seven day a week racing, and people have voted with their feet by not going. Racing had a soul, and now it's all about money, it's not a numbers game, it should be a quality product, and I just think there's too many meetings, there's too many trainers, there's too many jockeys, there's too many horses. We're just catering for an inferior product at the end of the day, or they're weakening our good one.

And the big killer that's never ever been addressed is there's 40 minutes between races. When you look at the action time over eight races, or whatever we have, it's probably only 10, 12, 15 minutes, so racing basically to go to track, is boring.

Amanda Smith: Now Paul Brettel is one of the new breed of racing administrators, charged with reinvigorating public interest in going to race meetings. He's the Chief Executive of the Moonee Valley Racing Club in Victoria. And one of his innovations there was the introduction of night racing, which started last year. Paul Brettel sees that as moving with the times, something he says the bookmakers haven't done.

Paul Brettel: Racing, in trying to do something about the attendance on-course, one of its greatest challenges is to promote and get new people to racing. That's working in many ways, including I think the night-time market, and certainly at times like Spring Racing Carnival. The problem that the bookmakers face with that of course is that a lot of the new people that come to racing, find a bookmaker somewhat intimidating, they find it much easier to walk up to a tote window and simply place a bet with the tote operator rather than trying to work out the machinations of the bookmaker prices and all the complexities of the way the bookmaker handles their business. And I think as a general rule, I'd have to say that I don't believe bookmakers as a profession have adapted sufficiently to change. I don't think they've come up with sufficient number of innovations, I don't think they've been in many ways as user-friendly as they would need to be. And in many ways I think they need to reconsider their position, and in fairness to them, race clubs and the racing industry need to look to work with them, to see how they can all help improve the sort of marketing opportunities the bookmakers might have.

One of the things that when you look at specifically the issue of bookmakers, I mean we've inherited I suppose the English tradition, which is not surprising, given that we inherited so much from the English back last century. And one of those of course is the system of bookmakers in terms of the bookmakers on course. In fact bookmakers are probably out there strongest in the UK, compared to anywhere else. If you travel around racing in many other places, and certainly racing through Asia, where it's exceptionally strong in Japan and Hong Kong, and Singapore, I suppose they are the three that are growing strongest and will continue to be world leaders in many ways. The interesting difference is that they don't have bookmakers at all, they simply have the totes, there are no bookmakers and they function very well. They survive very well, they progress very sell. Now the culture of Australian racing has always had bookmakers involved in it, and I think for that reason it would be useful to do everything we can to sustain that little bit of a characteristic, because it does add a little bit of a dimension to the track.

Having said that, one would have to be perfectly honest and say that racing in Hong Kong and Japan is an effective day, it's an enjoyable day, it's a great outing and the lack of bookmakers sadly doesn't have any detrimental effect on the operating procedures that they go on with. So while I'm not suggesting we don't need bookmakers, what I'm saying is in these other places they've been able to make enormous progress and do an enormous amount of innovation and they've been able to do without bookmakers at all.

Amanda Smith: Paul Brettel, Chief Executive Officer of the Moonee Valley Racing Club.

But to return to George Julius' invention, which both mechanised and legitimised the tote in Australia. Why, in a culture where bookmaking was so strong, was the Julius tote accepted and endorsed as an alterative way for punters to lose their money? Chris McConville.

Chris McConville: Well I guess there's a number of things. One, it was a practical, efficient invention and it could add up figures very quickly because of its electric power. It was a huge machine, it used to fill a room on the racetrack. It wasn't too quick at first, because sometimes they had to hold up races for half an hour while it added up the figures, but eventually he improved it and made it quite a sophisticated machine for the time. So on the one hand it was a good, accurate machine that people learnt to trust. On the other hand I think there's traditionally been a lot of suspicion of bookmakers in Australia, and a lot of people who, like Julius' father were against gambling in general, really saw the totalisator as a step to getting rid of gambling altogether. So totes were often acceptable to people who didn't like bookmaking and didn't like gambling as a first step to getting rid of gambling altogether. And part of the argument for introducing totes in Victoria and New South Wales was that the tote would drive the bookmaker out of business.

I guess the other side of it too, is that race clubs right from the 1920s onwards realised there was this huge SP market, or illegal market with bookmakers off the racetrack, and for a long time they argued that if we could get a totalisator efficiently run, clearly identified for betting, with a percentage of the funds going to support State institutions like hospitals, this would bring money back into racing, back into the community and out of the pockets of unscrupulous SP bookies.

Amanda Smith: Well those who thought that the tote might bring about the end of gambling were really wrong, weren't they?

Chris McConville: (laughs) I think they were very misguided. I guess there's a couple of Australian States that didn't believe that, South Australia in particular, and South Australia at one stage banned the tote and introduced off-course gambling shops, which then they got rid of and reintroduced the tote. I think the tote has been one of the things that has caused the decline of bookmakers. I think we shouldn't just see it as that process as a product of the tote; people had started to stay home from the races in the 1950s before the introduction of the off-course tote, to watch the last quarter of VFL football on television. People had stopped going to the races and started doing other things when they got motor-cars in the 1950s, when the race clubs closed down the flat at the centre of the courses and turned them into parking lots, that barred thousands of people again from the racetracks, so I think racing was starting to lose its appeal to the crowd from the 1950s onwards, and the tote really I guess has hastened a long drawn out process of decline in the number of bookmakers.

Amanda Smith: Well bookies and those who think bookmakers are a special part of the Australian racing scene, certainly bemoan the tote. But what do you think George Julius' legacy to Australian racing is through his tote?

Chris McConville: Well I think he's established gambling as a government-approved, legal and popular pastime, not just gambling on the course. He's made gambling ubiquitous and I think if it hadn't been for the invention of the tote, we wouldn't now have this massive national and international gambling industry. Now that might not necessarily be a good thing, but the origins of our sort of mania for betting and gambling nowadays goes back to the invention of the tote and I suppose the tote's really freed gambling from horse racing, because the tote can take bets on anything. I mean you can bet on who's going to be the next government in Australia, you can bet on football, you can bet on the weather, you can bet on anything with the totalisator system, it doesn't have to be horse racing. So I think what's happened is that links between gambling and horse racing has been broken now, and that's one of the real problems of the racing industry, that people have so many other things to gamble on, which goes back in the long run to the invention of a clearly understood, and electrically powered and mathematically accurate totalisator system, and if it wasn't for that, I think racing might actually be in a more powerful and secure position than it is nowadays.

Amanda Smith: Chris McConville, who lectures in Australian Studies at the Sunshine Coast University College. And who's currently working on a book about the cultural politics of gambling in Australia.

And as Chris said, one of the things that legalising an off-course tote did was to weaken the bond between horse-racing and gambling. Add a bit of late 20th century technology to that, and you've got Internet wagering, where you can bet from the comfort of your own home on all sorts of sports events. Bookmaker Graham Sampieri now not only works on the rails at race meetings, he's also a shareholder in International All-Sports, the high-tech betting service that was started up in 1995 by Mark Read, and which operates out of Darwin.

Graham Sampieri: I think the model that's involved with Mark Read, which is International All Sports, or Darwin All-Sports, I think Mark realised, and he was right, that in the early '90s that bookmaking as we do it today was doomed. So he had this vision that the future in bookmaking would be about high technology betting services, in particular for sport, and to a world market. And an information technology product that would enable a company to advance racing and sports information products to them. And this is a few years old, but I think that it's been successful and I think that's the way to go. That is the future.

Amanda Smith: But is there a future for the bookmaker on the rails, operating in the old way? And what will the Melbourne Cup and Australian horse-racing in general, be like by the year 2020? Alf King is cautiously optimistic.

Alf King: My view of the future is that there may be a dozen or so big bookmakers on the rails who will have representatives in different parts of the ring, namely in the new stand which is going up at Flemington and other positions. So those 12 bookmakers or 18 bookmakers, whatever they might be, would have a representative taking bets so as they can relay them straight back to the boss on the rails.

I think the bookies are a hearty race and they'll survive. The only thing that can put them out of business is if the race clubs were to introduce an increase in turnover tax and expenses, that would force the bookie out. I don't think they've got any intentions of doing that. I hope not.

RACETRACK - ANNOUNCEMENT

Graham Sampieri: I don't know whether there's going to be any racing in 2020, I think I'll be dead, but it worries me that there will be actually a racing product, because the technology revolution with casino games and we've got horse racing games now that will be so much more sophisticated, the easy way to bet with a gaming sort of machine I think will take over from the racehorse. And maybe they may still have the Melbourne Cup and things like that, but I don't know, I don't think so.

Amanda Smith: That's a pretty bleak prognosis from Graham Sampieri. But does Alf King have any regrets about being involved in a business that's declined so markedly over the 60 years he's been involved?

Alf King: Oh look, I've never regretted being a bookie, because you meet such great blokes, and their understanding and their honesty and integrity . give me a bookie any day.

EXCITEMENT AT TRACK

Amanda Smith: And that's The Sports Factor for today. Aiding and abetting the program this week was producer Michael Shirrefs, in concert with Gerard Callinan, a media studies student from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I'm Amanda Smith, thanks for your company and I hope you'll join me again next Friday on Radio National.


Guests on this program:
Alf King
Melbourne-based bookie.


Graham Sampieri
Melbourne-based bookie.


Paul Brettel
Chief Executive Officer of the Moonee Valley Racing Club in Melbourne.


Chris McConville
Lecturer in Australian Studies at the Sunshine Coast University College in Queensland.


Presenter:
Amanda Smith

Producer:
Michael Shirrefs

Researcher:
Gerard Callinan

[pmj18]

AV...Do you ever feel like you are talking to yourself? It seems every time you make a post, you have two or three following posts in the same thread, with no one else posting.

[MarkDel]

PMJ18,

Do you get the feeling that AussieVamp is the kinda guy who does A LOT of things by himself?

[pmj18]

LOL

[AussieVamp2]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:[/size]<HR>Originally posted by MarkDel:
PMJ18,

Do you get the feeling that AussieVamp is the kinda guy who does A LOT of things by himself?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So you are a self-avowed porn surfer for what reason?

Industry research?

[cerberus]

Heath,

First of all, thank you for the civilized response.

My posting privileges have been restored, as I have tried to explain the rational behind my posts to the moderators, which I guess they have understood.

I never ever said that America wasn't a great country. Believe it or not, I am actually glad to have you guys as our neighbours. As some poster asked me about our military budget, which I know to be quite paltry, it is comforting to know that should we ever need military assistance, that the USA would be there for us.

Heath, you have every right to believe that your country is the greatest in the world, and you gave logical and intelligent reasoning behind your thinking. I also praise you for being able to admit the faults and shortcomings of your gov't.

I believe that there are many parameters to greatness. You may have mentioned some already, but the ones I consider most important are :

- freedom of citizens
- compassion citizens have for one another (racial harmony, religious tolerance, conscience of the people - not only for their fellow countrymen, but for their fellow human beings all over the world)

This is the basic premise behind the thread I had started earlier, which was that I wanted Bin Laden and his followers caught, but with reverance to the possible innocent lives that might be lost in the process. I know that many of you do not read the Toronto Star newspaper, but the heading on page A28, "Target the terrorists but spare the innocents", echoes my sentiments.

- gap between rich and poor
I know that we live in a capitalistic society, but I find it hard to stomach that there are so many living in poverty, while the rich only get richer

There are probably more things that I think make a country great, but to me the conscience of the people is most important.

I know that the USA has been the first to the moon, and has made countless technological advances, but that matters little to me when I consider what makes a country great. I do not mean to belittle these accomplishments nor the intelligence that was needed to accomplish these feats, but the USA has an immeasurable advantage in these areas because they are so financially rich as a nation. There are many brilliant people in all countries, and I'd like to think that given the same resources, these people would be able to make the same strides that the USA has made in revolutionizing the world.

To me greatness can be quite simple. An unknown and undiscovered tribe in a remote part of the world could be a paragon for greatness. This tribe might have little financial or military strength, but their ability to live in harmony might be unparalleled. Material things could be of little importance, with all tribe members sharing all possessions freely. They live life in contentment, without fear of any crimes being perpetrated by their members.

pmj18,

You can form your own opinions of me, and join with your other fellow posters in casting stones at me, but I can look in the mirror and be happy with the person that I am. I believe that you and the other posters have totally misinterpreted me, and the saddest thing is the cruelty of some of your responses. But I also believe that many posters can see rationale behind my posts, but as fellow Americans are afraid to be castigated should they respond in a kind and civil manner.

[pmj18]

cerburus..If your post last night, was made with the same tone as the one tonight, I would not have had the opinion I had of you. I have no problem looking in the mirror myself, and have always thought of Canada as a great friend to our country.


You must agree that the tone of your post's last night, were very anti-America in nature. I don't remember ever posting anything, before your post last night that could be taken as America trying to flex our muscles.

You should try to think how you would feel, if your country had been attacked, and someone posted negative comments about your homeland.