Sir Tim Rice found a moment during the gripping final hours of the third Ashes Test at Headingley last weekend to tweet about the latest betting on the outcome. “Just phoned my bookie (a rare occurrence of course),” he said, “to see what odds they were offering against an England win. They quoted 6-1! Ludicrous. Should be 500-1. At 100-1 I might have invested a fiver. Having said that I am still rooting for England. Nothing is impossible.”
My first reaction on reading his complaint was a wave of nostalgia. A quarter of a century after the internet turned gambling, and so much else, into a much more remote and impersonal business, there is still at least one punter – and a knight of the realm, no less – who actually phones his bookie. Had he referred instead to his “turf accountant”, the sudden rewind to betting’s golden age would have been complete.
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