It was the end of May 1983, half term week. I was meant to be revising for my O-levels, which were to begin the following Monday, but instead was mooching around town, a teenager ready to be led astray. And when I bumped into a couple of similarly unfocused classmates, that’s exactly what happened.
Instead of studying, they’d been seduced by gambling – specifically, betting on the horses. And now they were trying to seduce me. ‘You’ll love it,’ I was promised as they led me into a Ladbrokes, where the air was thick with fag smoke and booming with racetrack commentary.
They explained the procedure to me – the races were displayed by their start time, this was the list of runners on the board and those sets of two numbers were their odds. By this third category my familiar maths aversion was kicking in, so I just stuck with looking at the names. ‘Hit The Heights’ sounded most appealing, so I wrote that on to the little paper slip with the miniature pen and then emptied my pockets. The total cash I had on me was about 50p. So I wrote that number on to my pink and white slip too and handed it all across the till.
Then the race started – and, of course, Hit The Heights romped home. Those odds that I hadn’t understood had him/her (I still don’t know which) at 33/1 – and my 50p was transformed into more than £15. I was rich!
I rarely risk more than a tenner and my usual stake is nearer a pound or two. I am a kind of gambling everyman, one of an army of millions who enjoy an occasional little flutter but don’t go too far
I retell the story of this event as it approaches its 40th anniversary because, according to popular wisdom, this sizeable slice of beginners’ luck should have launched me into a ruinous career as a problem gambler, always seeking to replicate that initial euphoric and lucrative high. But, while it’s true that I have been betting ever since, it has always been cautiously: I rarely risk more than a tenner and my usual stake is nearer a pound or two.
I believe that in this regard I am a kind of gambling everyman, one of an army of millions – the ‘pinprickers’, as we’re known – who enjoy an occasional little flutter but who don’t have any problem with that. Our season is upon us – Cheltenham starts tomorrow, and then it’ll be Aintree, then Epsom, Ascot, Goodwood. We’ll have a look at the lists of runners, pick a nice name and colours, not worry too much about the form or the going. And while we’ll bet on those blue riband events, we won’t bother with second-tier stuff like Wolverhampton, Chester, Chepstow, Ludlow and co. We’ll enjoy our occasional successes and not take the more common defeats too hard.
And most of all we will – in the chidingly familiar words of the gambling awareness messaging – only bet what we can afford to lose. I manage this by preferring to bet on something with longer odds. Low stake, long odds is my formula. If it’s less than 8/1, I’m not interested. I’ve tried backing favourites and found that that’s the real mug’s game: if you win, you win small, unless you ramp up your stake and then if you lose, you lose big.
In other words, I’m the opposite of the problem gambler – the sensible one. But, as a cautious pinpricker, I have lately been feeling ignored. Because perhaps more than any of those other traditional vices – sexual, alcoholic, narcotic – the national conversation around gambling has grown almost entirely negative. It’s become seemingly more taboo than smoking.
I suspect this is because of the effectiveness of the reform lobby ahead of the Gambling Act white paper which is expected this year, possibly in the next few weeks, and is due to address the rules around betting for the first time in a generation. For months ahead of this, the media has been flooded with material around the horror of gambling addiction.
I have no dog in this fight (or no horse in this race, perhaps), but I do feel the anti voices have become so loud that they are drowning out those of us who just quite like it. Clearly gambling addiction is ruinous and damages the lives not just of its sufferers but of their families too. But it feels important to point out too that gambling isn’t necessarily problematic. It can be fun, and restrained, and normal – and not lead to a lifetime of regret. This year’s Gold Cup actually falls on St Patrick’s Day. What a blast. I can’t wait.
Incidentally, I just about scraped through those O-levels. I even got a pass in maths – something my teacher had bet me I wouldn’t. You can’t win them all, Sir.
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