Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
There is this huge myth that has gained currency throughout the upper echelons of the harness racing code that the decline in betting on the trots in favor of the dogs is all about the fact that the younger generation of punter has a short attention span, and is drawn to betting on the greyhounds […]
The growing preponderance of preferential barrier draws on Victorian metro meetings since the National Ratings system was introduced harbours interesting origins. For years – even decades – there’s been an unverified, almost patriarchal belief that making races more even encourages wagering interest, which raises turnover and increases stakemoney. And, like many things in life, there […]
I have always had trouble comprehending what Jason Bonnington is on about when he gets on his high horse making pronouncements about the state of harness racing and how to improve it, as if he is some sort of super wise sage. Today is no exception. It appears to me that that what Bonnington is […]
The Federal Government is today to announce that it will be introducing laws to ban punters from betting with corporate bookies using their credit cards. From the moment the law comes in – if it passed through Parliament – it will be cash or nothing. It is going to cost the bookies a fortune, and […]
Horse racing is something like a religion in Hong Kong, whose citizens bet more than anyone else on Earth. Their cathedral is Happy Valley Racecourse, whose grassy oval track and floodlit stands are ringed at night by one of the sport’s grandest views: neon skyscrapers and neat stacks of high-rises, a constellation of illuminated windows, […]
Benter grew up in a Pittsburgh idyll called Pleasant Hills. He was a diligent student and an Eagle Scout, and he began to study physics in college. His parents had always given him freedom—on vacations, he’d hitchhiked across Europe to Egypt and driven through Russia—and in 1979, at age 22, he put their faith to […]
The Hong Kong that greeted Benter was a booming financial center, with some of the most densely populated spaces on the planet. The crowded skyline that had recently inspired Ridley Scott’s dystopian megacity in Blade Runner seemed to sprout towers weekly. Benter and Woods rented a microscopic apartment in a dilapidated high-rise. Warbling Cantonese music drifted through […]
Throughout 1997 a shadow loomed over Hong Kong. After 156 years of colonial rule, the British were set to hand the territory back to China on July 1. There were news reports of Chinese troops massed at the border, and many islanders feared it would be the end of Hong Kong’s freewheeling capitalism. China tried […]
The story at the top is from 1996. It’s pretty sad isn’t it? Who the hell steals their disabled son’s future so they can gamble? What sort of mother does such a thing? A wicked, wicked woman, that’s who. Nah. Not really. An addict does. Are they one and the same? An addict and wicked […]
