Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
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 […]
Rumours are swirling around the racing industry that the much vaunted ‘new major player’ on the Australian bookmaking scene Betr is in more trouble than Flash Gordon. Betr was launched only 6 months ago to huge fanfare and publicity on the back of it’s ill-thought out improperly framed $101 odds betting offer to punters on […]
It doesn’t look like well greyhound man Mark Stollery is too happy with the corporate bookie UpCoz. I don’t know what the background is, but clearly there is a dispute going on about them not accepting bets with the money he deposited in his account with the outfit, and them refusing to refund his cash. […]
Have you read Adman Hamilton’s latest polemic on the state of harness racing, and how to fix it? Adman says that we need to modernize the sport by turning it in to Trot Rod city. Trot races take too long he reckons. Back in the day a study showed that 30% of air time on […]
Archie That study you quoted is ancient history. There’s one reason problem gamblers are problem gamblers and it’s the same for every type of addiction, sex, drugs alcohol rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s the pleasure pain balance in the mesolimbic dopamine pathway. You can listen about it here. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JLaF_4Tz8 Anna Lembke, Psychiatrist and Chief of […]
