HUGE RACING GAMBLE

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1935, Page 6

HUGE RACING GAMBLE

£BO,OOO LOST BY YOUNG MAN. STORY OF HECTIC CAREER. All the .racing world in England is talking about a young man who shot across the Turf horizon like a meteor, dazzling many by his brilliance, and, true to the idiosyncrasies of these celestial phenomena, has left an inky blackness behind him. For a number of bookmakers that blackness can be translated into £.s.d. —a matter of some £20,000 or more, for that is the sum the young man owes them. His name is Jack Green, or rather it should be said that is the name he used for his Turf transactions. His real name is Greenboam. That, however, is only an interesting detail, but it may awaken memories in many people’s minds. Mr.* Green, who is about 30 years of age, made his Turf debut early in the flat racing season and opened accounts with ten or a dozen bookmakers in various parts of the kingdom, including Glasgow, Birmingham and London. He had, from the bookmakers’ point of view, uncanny luck. He rarely backed a loser, and in one week alone relieved them of their hardly earned money to the extent of £15,000 by winning bets. By the time Ascot arrived Green was a racing notability. “Lucky Green,” he was called. He took Mill House, Taplow, for the royal meeting, and during the week was a prominent figure on the Heath. Everyone knew his magnificent motorcar and liveried chauffeur. His meteoric career was at its height. , With the coming of autumn Greens remarkable gift of picking winners began to leave him. Instead of receiving winning cheques from the bookmakers, who during the summer paid him something like £60,000, he had to face losing accounts. His losses mounted up and up and the bookmakers began to complain that they had difficulty in getting their money from Mr. Green. When pressed for payment he—so they gay—would give a cheque and promptly make another bet for a large sum in the hope that he had found a winner which would recoup his loss, the usual expedient of the losing gambler. And, as usual, the horse lost, but what was more serious for the bookmakers was the fact that they found themselves owed still more money. Green made a last desperate effort to retrieve his fortunes, in part if not in whole, by backing Mary Tudor for the Cambridgeshire, but that, as all the world well knows, was a useless effort. Now he owes the bookmakers £20,000, and they are wondering when they are likely to be paid