GREATEST GAMBLER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 10

GREATEST GAMBLER

BETS OF £2,000,000 A YEAR RECORD OF HALF-CENTURY SURVIVOR OF BETTING GIANTS Mr. Charles Hannam, who is known on every racecourse in Britain as the greatest gambler in the world, never talks about racing. He is surrounded by more legends than any other man on the turf. He is said to bet £2,000,000 a year on horses—in an ordinary day’s racing he will wager anything up to £lO,OOO. Mr. Hannam is the last survivor of the betting giants. He has been challenging fate by backing horses on a gigantic scale for half a century, and, in the words of Charles Morton, the famous trainer: “Alone of all the thousands of men who have tried to get a fortune by backing horses, he has stood the test of time and successfully defied the innumerable attempts to send him into the abyss into which most of the plucky plungers ultimately fall.” Mr. Hannam has had many inducements to tell the story of his life—a story of high financial thrill on tho turf that could not be told by any other man. But he has chosen to remain silent. Fifty years ago, the son of a Yorkshire farmer, he began his turf career as a bookmaker in a small way. He soon decided, however, against the opinions of 999 men out of 1000, that the road to fortune was in backing horses, not in laying the odds. So he became a professional backer. And in the past half-century hardly a racing day has passed without him taking a chance with thousands of pounds. To-day he is the one man in a hundred million who has made a fortune in backing horses and kept it. The secret of his success is his iron resolution: you cannot make him deviate one inch from his own opinion. The very mystery of the man attracts people in Tat rersall’s. Whenever he is walking toward a bookmaker he is followed by a little crowd who hope to find out what he is backing. How they can hope to find out his secret nobody knows, because he will often back two and three horses in one race, each bet of a size which if successful would win a few thousands. Yet people appear to trust his lucky star. Mr. Hannam—“Old England,” as he was nicknamed a few years ago—has invested much of his gains in industrial concerns, and financed a large dye business at Bradford.