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Building Bridges
Dickon White: developing relationships with the betting industry Chris Pitt meets Jockey Club Racecourses’ Dickon White Last September saw Haydock Park’s managing director Dickon White step into the...
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It’s a dead loss, literally…!
The powers-that-be at BOS gave me about ten minutes’ notice that they wanted this edition’s column, and wanted it NOW. So it should be no surprise that it has ended up as something of a dead loss....
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Bishop bucks the trend
Keith Bishop of Bishops Bookmakers. The end of last year brought a new arrival to the Nottinghamshire town of New Ollerton. It goes by the name of Bishops Bookmakers. Situated in Whitewater Road, the...
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Calling the races
Chris Pitt looks back 50 years to when shops were asked to pay for commentaries… In December 1962 the Racecourse Association received a timely Christmas present from the off-course bookmakers – their...
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Taxing problems
Chris Pitt looks back to 1966 and the introduction of the betting tax In his Budget speech on May 3, 1966, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jim Callaghan confirmed the rumours that had been circulating for...
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Great Bookmaking Families…The Guiness brothers of Regent Street
Rise and fall of a bookmaking dynasty by ANGUS DALRYMPLE MORNINGS AT THE Bob Guiness office high on the east side of Regent Street were languorous and peaceful, with leisurely reads of the three...
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Jenningsbet’s Grand National Night
by Mary Pitt The Midlands Racing Club’s Grand National Night, held in Birmingham on April 2 and sponsored for the fourth year by Jenningsbet, kicked off with some rare colour footage of the 1963 Grand...
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Old graders don’t just fade away
RGT’s Peter Laurie with Casper. Chris Pitt talks to Peter Laurie of the Retired Greyhound Trust EACH YEAR SOME 8,000 greyhounds retire from racing in Britain, typically between three and five years...
View Article‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’…! by Graham Sharpe
JONI MITCHELL is one of the iconic names of sixties’ music. It is pretty much my life’s work (well, the part of it which has happened since the sixties, anyway) to collect virtually every note of...
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ChampionBet at centre of action in Loughborough by Chris Pitt
In 1841, the Leicestershire town of Loughborough was the destination for the first package tour, organised by a man named Thomas Cook for a temperance group from Leicester. Championbet’s Adam Tomlinson...
View ArticleThe Keefes of Covent Garden- by Angus Dalrymple
CONFESSION: I KNEW the founder of the Keefe bookmaking dynasty only slightly, never once went to his credit office in Covent Garden to interview him, and entered a Keefe betting shop on only one...
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The “extremely driven” Ben Keith by Chris Pitt
Ben Keith at Royal Ascot with Alex Wheeler At just 33, Ben Keith sits at the helm of the biggest credit bookmaker in Britain. Since 2010 the company he founded and built up, Star Sports, has acquired...
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Barbara Berki – an eye opening year
Barbara in Kenya for Project Africa with the children of Ol Maisor. If you’re celebrating your thirtieth anniversary in the betting industry, there’s no better way to do it than as Racing Post/SIS...
View ArticleReady, steady, Coe… by Graham Sharpe
I REMEMBER A STORY that after Seb Coe had lost the 800 metres final in the Olympics to Steve Ovett, he received a letter from a female member of the public telling him to ‘pull your finger out’ as she...
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Jem Racing- Dorset’s leading Independent
JEM RACING HAS received plenty of publicity in recent months courtesy of the Racing Post’s Steve Palmer, whose back-page Sunday Supplement columns often sing the praises of the Dorset-based bookmaker....
View ArticleComment by Mary Pitt
PADDY POWER GAINED not just an actual but also a moral victory when District Court Judge Paul Goldspring ruled in the company’s favour, overturning the decision of the Newham County Council to reject...
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There’s no place like Holmes
Chris Pitt meets Ben Holmes of Holmes Betting The illegal Betting ShedPicture Supplied The Clowne shop is no joke. It is, though, a testimony to former times. Okay, nowadays it’s just a shed full of...
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Fulfilling a dream
Tim Cox, Trustee of the Home of Horseracing Trust and the National Horseracing Museum,reveals plans for Newmarket’s new National Heritage Centre. In Gallery 4 of the National Horseracing Museum in...
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A lifeline for problem gamblers
Chris Pitt visits the Gordon Moody Association IT’S ANONYMOUS. FROM the outside it’s a normal semi-detached house somewhere in the West Midlands town of Dudley. Yet behind its doors lies an...
View ArticleGreat Bookmaking Families…The Stallions of the “Elephant”
Angus Dalrymple remembers The Stallions of ‘The Elephant” BOOKMAKING IS DAMNED hard work. Always was, is, and will be. The profession demands meticulous care, super-efficient service, and a cheerful...
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