From the dawn of time, humans have gathered together to tell ourselves stories. Myths, legends and fables that fuel our imaginations and spark our curiosity.
Never is this truer than in the gambling community of the UK; a merry (mostly) band of brothers and sisters seeking to enhance our lives through tales of “that big win”, a glorious betting coup and, of course, the one that got away.
Many of these yarns will be exaggerated, some may even be old wives’ tales! But that doesn’t stop us dreaming.
Fantasy is one of the strongest currencies in the wagering world; the Saturday Acca, the Jackpot win on the horses and, now, the mega win on our favourite slot. Regardless of what the stats may tell us, that “the house always wins” and “that’s why bookies drive Rolls-Royces”, there are some individuals who have come to challenge these axioms.
Names that run through the gambling community like a stick of rock; beacons of hope shining a light through the gloomy, stormy seas of reality.
Let’s have a look at some of the great characters, past and present, who have turned winning into an art form and who serve as idols to the common man. A Mount Rushmore of gambling legends!
Terry Ramsden
Along with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Terry Ramsden bestrode the 1980’s like a Colossus. Among his many big wins, his 1984 coup in the Irish 1,000 Guineas has gone down in betting folklore.
Having bought the filly Katies just days before the race, Ramsden heavily backed the horse, although Katies remained an unfancied 20/1 on the day. She duly came through to win the race, beating 22 rivals and land Terry Ramsden a £2.5 million payout, allowing him to easily recoup the £500,000 he had spent buying the filly.
This equates to £7.7 million in today’s coin! Other coups followed and Ramsden remained a feared “face” in the betting rings of the UK’s racetracks well into the 1990’s.
At his peak, he was estimated to be worth £150 million, easily earning him the right to be considered one of the richest gamblers in UK lore and to justify his still-legendary reputation among punters, rich and poor.
Barney Curley
Barney Curley cut a rather forbidding figure when he was “King of the Ring”, not least for his Ulster background and famous pencil-moustache. His approach to betting was forensic, Machiavellian almost and he would plan his assaults on the bookmaking fraternity with military precision.
His most memorable coup occurred in 1975 at Bellewstown racecourse in Ireland. Having assembled a team of accomplices across betting shops in the UK and Ireland, at the allotted time he instructed them to start betting on an outsider in one of the races, called Yellow Sam.
Of course, Curley knew that this supposed 20/1 shot was anything but and he filled his boots. Back then, if on-course bookies wanted to “lay-off” some of their bets and reduce their liabilities, they would phone through the bets to Dublin and London. Anticipating this, Curley, allegedly, had paid someone to cut the two existing phone lines from the racetrack to the outside world as soon as the bets started to come in.
Thus, the bookies were stuck with the full scale of the coup and Yellow Sam romped home, making Curley a cool £300,000 in the process (£2.4 million in today’s money). Not all his coups were quite so underhand and he later expressed some regret for some of his exploits, but not before many UK, Irish and global bettors had taken him to their hearts.
Some shrewd observers have suggested that other betting coups, in 2010 and 2014, had all the hallmarks of the Curley touch, but these rumours will have to remain just that and the truth lost in the mists of time…
Harry Findley
Harry Findley’s autobiography/memoir is called “Gambling for Life” and has become required reading for the betting cognoscenti of the UK.
Unlike many more legendary gamblers who were circumspect when it came to self-advertising, Findley has always enjoyed the limelight and become a well-known figure in the horse racing and sports betting world when he owned the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, Denman.
Indeed, he famously backed the horse at a miserly 1-12 (1.08) to the tune of £360,000 early in its career!
Denman went on to win that race by 17 lengths, but wagers of that sort are not for the faint-hearted. Findley was also bold when it came to sports betting and, in 2007, he put his money where his mouth was.
Having told the world and his dog that New Zealand simply couldn’t be beaten in the Rugby World Cup, he proceeded to lump over £2.5 million on the All Blacks. Sadly for Findley, the Kiwis came unstuck in the quarter-finals against the French and this time his cash remained firmly in the bookies’ satchel.
But for his bravura and sheer love of the punting game, Harry Findley deserves his place on the podium.
Patrick Veitch
Patrick Veitch is an altogether more cerebral type of legendary punter, having studied Mathematics at Cambridge University. Starting his career in the city, he soon tired of the money markets and committed himself to life as a professional gambler.
One of his early forays into the wagering world was setting up a betting advisory line, paying friends £5-an-hour to answer calls and furnish a hungry punting public with his tips!
Whereas some of the names on this list may be larger-than-life characters who thrived on gut feeling, adrenaline and some unorthodox methods to practice their art, Veitch is very much a facts and figures man, preferring stats to stylistics.
He famously decreed that there are over 80 different factors when it comes to assessing a horse race and that list wasn’t closed yet.
At his peak, Veitch would devote over 80 hours a week to form study, not something that could be said for the likes of Curley, Ramsden et al. Various estimates put his lifetime winnings at between £10-20 million, but the true figure could easily be higher.
Veitch was nick-named the “baby-faced assassin of the betting ring” by the tabloid press, thus cementing his slightly opaque reputation in gambling lore. These days Veitch devotes most of his time to breeding and selling horses, but no doubt still keeps one eye out for a potential betting coup…
Tony Bloom
Tony Bloom may be best known as the Chairman and majority share-holder of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, but among the UK’s betting community, he still enjoys a lofty reputation as a legendary gambler.
Nick-named “the Lizard”, Bloom slithered into the public consciousness in the early noughties with the boom in televised Poker tournaments, winning several high-profile encounters, including a fourth-place finish in the 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. In the 1990’s he worked for bookmaker Victor Chandler and was instrumental in steering that firm towards siding with France in the 1998 World Cup, thus avoiding significant losses.
He then branched out on his own and his opinion on any sporting event was highly prized by Spread bettors and fixed-odds punters alike. In 2006, he set up StarLizard, a tipping service that specialised in Asian Handicap markets on football matches from around the world. Run more like a hedge fund, Bloom’s firm was a huge success and his wealth today is estimated to be in the billions.
Bloom may not have the swagger and bravura of some of the more swash-buckling figures listed here, but there is more than one way to skin a cat, and Bloom’s forensic analysis, as both punter and online casino or a bookie, easily allow him to enter the pantheon of legendary UK gamblers.
