Old-Time Bookmaker Recalls Races Of 1900’s

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 9

Old-Time Bookmaker Recalls Races Of 1900’s

"The Press’* Special Service

AUCKLAND, January 23.

The bowler-hatted “bookies” who shouted the odds at Ellerslie before bagmen were barred by Act of Parliament in 1911 are almost extinct. Only one of the old-timers, so far as is known, is alive today in Auckland. He is “Honest Jim” Donnelly, aged 88. of Mount Eden. The old man’s proudest boast: he never “welshed” on a bet.

“Honest Jim” mourns the gaudy days of racetracks before the First World War. Born in Ballarat, he was a bookmaker in Australia before he came to New Zealand in 1903. He was plying his trade on Dominion tracks when the Government outlawed the on-course bookmakers 45 years ago. Although he is a “dinkum Aussie,” Mr Donnelly blames Australian “sharpers” for having bookmaking barred in New Zealand. “Crooks, rooks and down-and-outs came over from Sydney,” the old man recalls. “All they needed was £25 to get a permit to operate on the inside, and £5 td £7 10s to call the odds outside. “A lot of them never had a ‘cracker.’ They’d go broke by the second race and then take to their ‘scrapers.’ “The greatest ‘scaler’ I ever saw was one of the boys who came from Sydney to Auckland. He would stand up and tell the tale while the punters yelled for his. blood. ‘Come to the pub tonight and I’ll pay in full,’ he used to tell his creditors. Funny thing, they believed him. “He worked this lurk on a lot of tracks. But he could never operate in the same town twice.” One of Mr Donnelly’s treasured memories is of. a defaulting “bagman” being chased* by irate punters oh Flemington racecourse in Melbourne.

The bookie jumped in the river,” he says with a chuckle. “He was a parson’s son.”

Australian bookmakers really put the profession in bad odour when they “scaled” at Riccarton on Grand National Hurdles day in 1910. Mr Donnelly says. “The winner,” he recalls, “was Paisano, ridden by Young.” Mr Donnelly customarily “fielded” on the outside (or silver betters’) part of the course. “Most of the bets would be from half a crown to 10 bob,” he says, “with an occasional fiver or tenner. The big money was on the inside.

“Eut an honest bookie could get into trouble enough by silver betting. My average ‘take’ was about £6O a race. But good horses owned by the Steads and the Ormonds were running at that time. They won race after race and the crowd kept queuing up to back them at even money and two to one on.”

Mr Donnelly recalls that he was betting at Plumpton Park trots, Christchurch, the day that King Edward VII died. “They’d only run three races when the news came through,” he says, “but they called the meeting off.”

Though the halcyon days are long gone, “Honest Jim” retains his interest in horse flesh. “He still has a bet," his wife says. “I often catch him sneaking a fiver down to the T.A.8.” Bookmakers were forbidden to operate on racecourses by section 4 of the Gaming Amendment Act, 1910, which came into force on January 3. 1911. The business of bookmaking (off-course) was not made unlawful, however, until the passing of section 2 of the Gaming Amendment Act, 1920. This prohibition was made effective from August 28, 1920.