how Australians became the world’s most enthusiastic gamblers

The story goes that the late billionaire Australian media magnate Kerry Packer once visited a Las Vegas casino, where a Texan was bragging about his ranch and how many millions it was worth.

Packer produced a coin from his pocket and said: “I’ll toss you for it: my cash against your ranch”.

The Texan declined.

This story may or may not be true. But it is consistent with the old maxim that Australians love a punt and will bet on just about anything, even on two flies crawling up a wall (which one will fly off first?).

A rich history

Australians are the biggest (or worst) gamblers in the world per capita. How did it come to this?

By the 1830s, following European settlement in Australia, there was a steady stream of migrants who were taking the ultimate gamble – resettling on the other side of the world.

The discovery of gold in the 1850s then encouraged a torrent of speculators often armed with no more than a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Most remained insolvent but some found bonanzas. Gold-rich towns, Melbourne in particular, developed rapidly. Modern enclosed racecourses soon followed.

At first, gambling was restricted to side bets between the horses’ connections.

That changed in 1882 when Englishman Robert Sievier visited Australia. He was the first bookmaker to stand on a regular pitch, accept cash bets and pay winners after each race.

Sievier soon had numerous imitators on course – bookmakers registered with race clubs, betting on races like the Melbourne Cup, which by the 1890s attracted 100,000-plus racegoers.

Some fun on the front line

People bet off-course too – in barber shops and saloons, not only on the races but rowing events, cycling and “pedestrianism” (foot races).

Despite state betting acts passed in 1906 intended to restrict gambling, by the first world war, capital cities were dotted with racecourses.

Male racegoers were encouraged to “play up and play the game” – as the famous 1892 imperialist poem Vitai Lampada by Henry Newbolt urged – and enlist in the defence forces.

When their enthusiasm curbed in 1917 after causalities at the front seeped back, governments reduced the number of race meetings but this caused crowds at those remaining to treble.

Meanwhile, at the front lines, Australian soldiers adopted the egalitarian coin-toss game of two-up: a game where coins are spun in the air and bets are laid on whether heads or tails are facing up once they settle on the ground.

Two-up remains a facet of the Australian psyche today – illegal, although authorities turn a blind eye on Anzac Day, supposedly out of respect for returned soldiers.

This concession reflects the connection in Australia between mateship, the “Anzac legend”, sport and gambling.

The pokie problem

After the first world war, racecourse attendances grew even larger.

The 1929 Depression eroded them but the emergence of racing radio broadcasts and the spread of the telephone network fed a regrowth in illegal off-course betting, especially in New South Wales.

That state was also the scene of the next big, and perhaps most significant, development in gambling in Australia: the legalisation of poker machines in 1956.

“The pokies” were originally restricted to registered clubs: mostly returned servicemen clubs, but in 1997, the NSW Labor government allowed them into hotels, where they soon rendered the less exciting “dancing joker” card machines extinct.

The other states long resisted the temptation to legalise pokies. As a result, coaches loaded with would-be players from Victoria visited clubs at New South Wales border towns such as Corowa.

The pokies were finally legalised in Victoria in 1991, later in other states. In Western Australia they remain legal in casinos only.

Poker machines are widely regarded as a more insidious and dangerous form of gambling – in most other countries they are restricted to casinos.

Since then, pokies have become a major part of Australia’s gambling landscape. In fact:

The options are endless

Poker machines reign as the dominant form of gambling in Australia, but there are many more options: lotteries and instant lotteries (“scratchies”), Keno and sports betting, which is fast replacing horseracing as the main business of the so-called corporate bookmakers that have emerged in the past 25 years.

As technology continues to advance, online gambling – which is difficult to regulate and control – might be the biggest ongoing threat to gamblers.