GAMBLING
See Also: A DANDY FELLOW; ENTERTAINMENT; FOOD
Sandwich; HORSERACING
Betfair
Betfair
is a person-to-person betting exchange business. The company was founded by Andrew Bert
Black and Ed Wray. The former, who
devised the underlying concept, had had a variety of employers, including
G.C.H.Q.. The latter had had a career at
J.P. Morgan. The two men had come to
know one another through Black and Wray's brother being bridge players.
Location:
Embankment Waterfront, Winslow Road, W6 9HP
Betting Shops
In 1961
the Macmillan government's Betting & Gaming Act legalised off-track betting
shops.
Ladbrokes
Ladbrokes
was founded in 1886 to act as the commission agent for horses that had been
trained at Ladbroke Hall in Worcestershire.
The business developed into an upmarket turf accountant it was reputed
that some members of the royal family used it pseudonymously) that had a
Dickensian office in which clerks sat high ledger desks. In 1956 the Stein family paid 100,000 for
the firm. Cyril Stein became Ladbrokes s
managing director; it is reputed he was able to recoup the purchase price by
aggressively collecting the large debts that some of the firm's aristocratic
clients had been allowed to run up. The
company used advertising to broaden its customer base and introduced
ante-post and no limit betting In 1962 Ladbroke's opened its first betting
shops.
In 1967
Ladbrokes floated on the Stock Exchange with a capitalisation of over 1m. The business extended itself into casinos and
hotels. In 1993 Mr Stein retired from
Ladbrokes. The company was then
capitalised at around 2bn.
Location:
6 Old Burlington Street, W1S 3AE.
Ladbroke's original office. (purple, red)
The
Odds
One
betting shop manager commented to a friend, in reference to his customers,
They never get it there's five paying-in windows and one paying-out.
Bingo
The
Cricklewood Mecca
Blanche
Blackwell (n e Lindo) (1912-2017) was the scion of one of Jamaica s
wealthiest families. She was the mother
of Chris Blackwell, who set up Island Records.
She and Ian Fleming were lovers.
In 2003 she moved to London and settled in a flat in Knightsbridge. In Jamaica she had owned and bet on
racehorses. In London she had her
chauffeur once a week drive her into suburban North-West London so that she
could play bingo at The Cricklewood Mecca.
Location:
200 Cricklewood Broadway, NW2 3DU
See
Also: IAN FLEMING
Casinos
In the
mid-1960s the American Mafia was using London casinos as a means of laundering
money. The former Hollywood actor George
Raft became a director of The Colony Room.
In 1968 the law governing casinos was changed to make it harder for
foreign criminals to gain influence over them.
Casinos
call big spending gamblers as whales .
The Clermont
Club
During
the 1950s John Aspinall (1926-2000) and John Burke organised baccarat parties
in private London houses. They took a
share of the winnings.
In the
early 1960s Aspinall opened The Clermont Club.
The overheads were higher than they had been for the house parties, they
were only able to earn a table charge , and they had to pay tax. The crime boss Billy Hill (1911-1984) heard
that Aspinall was short of money. Hill
proposed the Big Edge. This involved the
Clertmont's cards being marked by being gently bent one way or the other to
indicate their value. The cards were
then reinserted into their packs and these were sealed. A reader would play in games that the cards
were being used. He would not the exact
value of cards but would have an edge to be able to win more often than
not. Burke felt unable too uncomfortable
with the scam. Within a year of it
having started, he resigned as the financial director of The Clermont. Aspinall used his departure as a means of
claiming to Hill that he believed that the sting was too hard to continue.
In 2009
it was reported Aspinall's friends and family did not believe that his alleged
involvement in the Big Edge scam was creditable.
Location:
44 Berkeley Square, W1J 5AR (purple, blue)
The
Playboy Club
In 1953
Victor Lownes III (1928-2017) left his family.
The following year he met Hugh Hefner (1926-2017) at a party. In 1955 Lownes, who had an M.B.A from the
University of Chicago, became Playboy's marketing director. In 1960 the company opened its first Bunny
Club in Chicago. The same year
Parliament passed the Betting & Gaming Act.
This liberalised Britain's gambling laws. In 1963 Lownes moved to the U.K. to head
Playboy's European operations. Three
years later the company opened the Playboy Club at 45 Park Lane. In the late 1970s London's gambling industry
enjoyed a boom of Middle Eastern gamblers.
Lownes once remarked that if the Israelis wanted to get the Arabs to the
peace table they should cover it with green baize. Playboy acquired a number of casinos and set
up a chain of bookmakers. Over 1975-81
the European operation made profits oof 660.
This was far larger than those of its American parent. For a while Lownes was Britain's highest paid
executive.
He was
sexually promiscuous. He used Stocks to
live the Playboy lifestyle. During the
1970s there were numerous newspapers stories about it. At one party 8000 bottles of champagne were
drunk. There had been numerous
journalists at the event. How it took
three days for the first story to be printed about it. This was because they all needed time to
recover.
Lownes
had developed enemies in Hefner's inner circle and antagonised Cyril Stein the
head of the Ladbrokes betting chain. The
latter was able to discover that Lownes had engaged in some technical - but not
criminal - infringements of Playboy's betting licences. He informed the police who raided the Playboy
Club and Clermont in early 1981. The
Americans used this as an excuse to move against Lownes. In 1981 he was sacked. It was this dismissal, rather than Lownes s
actions, prompted the British authorities to revoke the licences.
Lownes
owned Stocks, a country house in Hertfordshire.
It was the venue for celebrities to party in hedonistically. It had Europe's largest whirlpool bath. Private Eye magazine referred to him
as Victor Disgusting. He remained hungry
for publicity.
Lownes
turned Stocks into a country club. He
had a love of theatre-going and proved to a successful investor in shows.
Lownes
had an off-on relationship with Marilyn Boobs Cole. In 1984 they married. The couple lived in a mansion on Hyde Park
Corner. However, over the years they
lived in less of it. In the end they
occupied just the basement - like a pair of rabbits.
Location:
1 Connaught Square, W2 2HG. Lownes s
home. (purple, brown)
14 Old
Park Lane, W1K 1ND (orange, blue)
Restitution
Robert
Goff (1926-2016) and Gareth Jones's (1930-2016) book The Law of Restitution
(1966) set out the basis for the introduction of the concept of unjust
enrichment to become established as a legal principle in English law. The particular case involved a solicitor
called Norman Cass. He had embezzled
220,000 from the legal firm of Lipkin Gorman, of which he was a partner. He had gambled the money away at the Playboy
Club. He ended up being jailed for three
years. His former colleagues sought
restitution of the money that he had stolen.
In 1991 the House of Lords ruled that the casino should repay the
partners 150,000. One of the law lords
who presided over the case was Goff.
Fishmonger Hall
William
Crockford was born into a family that ran a fish stall at the western end of
the Strand. Although barely literate, he
had a mind that proved to be able to understand the statistical realities of
gambling. He used the local taverns as
academies in which to nurture his skills at playing cards and dice. Horseracing grew to be one of his
interests. He became a known figure at
both Tattersall's and Newmarket. While
retaining his Cockney identity, he took to mixing with aristocrats. He was granted entry into the gambling
establishments of St James's and Mayfair.
Crockford
appreciated that ultimately managing a West End gaming house was likely to
prove to be more profitable than being the customer of one. He opened his own establishment on St James s
Street. With time, it grew to fill four
adjacent townhouses. On a number of
occasions the entrepreneur was charged with keeping a common gambling house. However, through a mixture of bribery and
influence, he managed to avoid ever being convicted.
The
entrepreneur commissioned the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt to convert the St
James's Street properties into a palace of gambling . The building opened in 1828. It soon became known as Fishmonger Hall.
Location:
11 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y 5AH.
William Crockford's home. (red, turquoise)
12 Park
Place, SW1A 1LP (red, blue)
10 St
James's Street, SW1A 1EF. The St James's
Bazaar building was probably designed by James Pennethorne for Crockford.
(orange, pink)
50-53
St James's Street, SW1A 1JT. Fishmonger
Hall. (blue, grey)
Gamblers
Colonel
Thomas Panton
Colonel
Thomas Panton (d.1685) was a gambler who had been born the younger son of a
gentleman. He excelled at card games,
particularly hazard. After a major win
he bought estates in Hampshire and Herefordshire and stopped gambling
altogether. His inclination to engage in
speculative risk was redirected into metropolitan housing development.
Location:
Panton Street, SW1Y 4DL (orange, purple)
See
Also: ESTATES The Panton Estate
Henry
Disney Roebuck
Henry
Disney Roebuck acquired wealth at the gaming tables. He commissioned the construction of a country
house in Somerset, which he called Midford Castle (1775). The building's unusual three-sided design is
reputed to have been inspired by the ace of clubs, which Roebuck regarded as
having been his luckiest card.
The
5th Earl of Rosslyn
The 5th
Earl of Rosslyn (1869-1939) had a gambling problem. In 1896 he was declared bankrupt. He took to the stage in order to earn a
living. He proved to be able to continue
with his gambling. In 1908 he and the
gun manufacturer Sir Hiram Maxim engaged in a gambling duel to break the bank
at Monte Carlo.
Location:
18 Eaton Square, SW1W 9DD (red, pink)
Gamblers Anonymous
Brian
Lennard (1935-2019) founded the Sacha Shoes chain. He made a fortune, which he gambled
away. Having encountered Gamblers
Anonymous in the United States he set up its British branch in 1964.
Website:
www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk
The Pools
In the
1920s the pools developed as a means of betting on football matches. The Street Betting Act of 1906 was
circumvented by allowing people to bet on credit one week at a time. The money they handed over to the company
representative was for the previous week.
Most
people who did the pools were working class although not all. Nigel Lawson the Chancellor of the Exchequer
did them. He was once asked Why do you
do them? Think of the odds. Thinking of the winnings! he replied.
Zetters
was the smallest of the three large football pools companies. The other two were Littlewoods and Vernons.
Location:
86-88 Clerkenwell Road, EC1M 5RJ. Now a
boutique hotel. (orange, yellow)
Slot Machines
Admiral
In 2024
Admiral had 275 slot machine shops in the U.K..
It was owned by Novomatic, which was controlled by Johann Graf, an
Austrian.
Merkur
In 2024
Merkur had 230 slot machine shops in the U.K..
The company was owned by the Gauselmann family, who were Germans.
Sports Betting
In 2000
an I.T. programmer and a banker applied stock market systems to sports
betting. They created in which gamblers
competed against one another rather than the house. Betfair took a 2.5% commission on winnings
Spread Betting
Spead
betting was established in 1963 when Coral set up Coral Index to take bets on
the movement of the New York and London stock markets.
In 1983
Christoher Hales (1939-2018) and Jonthan Sparke set up City Index. At one point, Sparkes became seriously
ill. Hales bet him 5000 he would
survive. He did but Hales declined to
take his winnings.
Turf Accountants
The
Street Betting Act of 1906 made cash betting illegal off racecourses. People with access to credit could bet with
turf accountants.
The
great betting shop chains grew out of credit offices that had been established
in Mayfair to cater to landowners.
David
Backhouse 2024