Gambling today is not half so much fun as it used to be

Harold in 1939, pictured in the West End of Derby, where much back-street gambling took place. He grew up in Leaper Street

As Euro lottery winner Angela Kelly, from East Kilbride, comes to terms with her recently acquired £35.4m fortune, Harold Richardson, of Trowels Lane, Derby, looks back at the various opportunities for gambling which existed in the past, and notable wins, which, although modest by today’s standards, were still life-changing events.

I wonder how many readers can remember buying ’Nemo’ football tickets and the thrill of expectancy every Saturday evening when the Football Special edition took to the streets.

The Nemo cost all of sixpence (2.5p) which was no small sum in pre-war days and, once torn open, it revealed the names of two football teams.

If, on the following Saturday, your teams, between them, achieved the highest aggregate of goals scored in all four divisions (away teams one goal start), then you’d be the holder of a ticket worth a £30 fortune.

With lady luck smiling on you, you may have even opened a “two in one”. This happy event came about if your two winning teams happened to be in the same division, which gave you a further chance of winning a prize for the highest scores in that division. The prize for this, as I remember, was £10 – almost a month’s pay in those days.

Then, of course, there were the local wagers which were placed on forecasting the first and last letters of a Derby Daily Telegraph headline. That’s another sport which kept us amused.

There were also other forms of gambling which flourished in the West End streets and backyards that I recall, including pitch and toss. This involved the tossing of three coins and the successful calling of “two heads” or “two tails” or “all three” before they landed.

Brook Street in the West End, where locals would take part in illegal card games for money and run illegal bets on the horses and dogs

Spoof was another way of passing the time and this was a game of deducing, by known clues, what was being concealed in closed hands. I can’t, however, remember the intricate details of this game.

Then there were the fruit machines. In the darker recesses of the local shops, the penny fruit machines would pay out tokens instead of real money and, in the unlikely event of you ending up with a surplus, these tokens could only be spent in the shop itself.

Card games were also played on street corners, for money stakes. A game called Banker was the most popular – but those taking part always had a wary eye looking out for upholders of the law.

Should your fancy have turned to a flutter on a horse or dog race, the only lawful way of taking part, prior to the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act of 1963, was by placing an on-course or credit bet.

This naturally excluded the less well-heeled in society who had to make do with unlawful back-street bookmakers.

Agents for these were more usually corner shops, or runners operating from pubs and selected houses – no doubt all well known to the police but, provided there was no trouble or complaints, they were left mostly undisturbed, apart from periodic raids and purges.

The most popular of all forms of gambling was undoubtedly the football pools and these did not fall under gambling legislation because they claimed to be competitions of skill rather than chance.

To be on the safe side, the organisers stated in the rules that all transactions were “binding in honour” only.

Vivian Nicholson and her husband Keith, pictured in London in 1961, after receiving the £152, 319 cheque for their pool’s win from comedian Bruce Forsyth

Not that any of us at the time were clear about this. We faithfully filled in our coupons week after week and sent them off by post or handed them in, with payment, to agents or collectors.

The first and perhaps most popular, Littlewoods Football Pools, was founded by John Moores in 1923. Others I can bring to mind were Vernons and Zetters but I am sure there were many others and all working on the same formulae of forecasting match results.

The penny points pool was the first to offer prospects of larger dividends and then came the treble chance pool in 1946. This was the beginning of a craze that was to last near on 50 years.

It was said that the pools made football popular among the whole family and helped to make football a national obsession rather than simply a game played by working class men. Of all the big pools winners none have stayed in the nation’s mind quite so clearly as Vivian Nicholson who became a public figure overnight in 1961 when she won £152,319 (about £5m in terms of average earnings today). She soon declared she was going to “spend, spend, spend!”

This she did.

Her fortune rapidly dwindled to nothing. She had indeed spent, spent and spent again until the banks and tax creditors deemed her bankrupt and all that she had acquired belonged to the estate of her late husband.

It was the introduction of the National Lottery in 1995, with its even larger jackpots, that was to bring on the dramatic demise in the popularity of football pools.

Vernons closed its pools operation in February 1998 and Littlewoods Pools was sold for £161m in the year 2000. It all seems such a long way from those less avaricious times of street corner gambling and the back street bookies. Now all so proper and above board, gambling has none of the fun which was held in a knowing nod or a wink while passing a slip of paper over the bar top along with an empty glass.

FEEDBACK

Did you enjoy this article? If so, why not comment on it? Perhaps you disagree with something in it, or you know something the writer doesn't and can add some extra facts. You may want to ask a question about this article. Making a contribution is easy - either click 'edit' to insert more information or 'discussion' and then 'add comment.' This is your site. Please feel free to use it to the full and share your memories, thoughts and knowledge about Derbyshire with others.

If there is no 'edit' link showing it means the article has either previously been published in the Derby Evening Telegraph, or it has been protected by the site administrator and cannot be edited.'

Other tags that are relevant to Gambling today is not half so much fun as it used to be

Help us to improve You&Yesterday by adding more tags to this article. Simply edit this page, find this area and add the words in a list separated by commas next to the *.

To find out more about tagging please click here.

County: Derbyshire

Return to You_and_Yesterday

Retrieved from "http://www.youandyesterday.co.uk/articles/Gambling_today_is_not_half_so_much_fun_as_it_used_to_be"

You cannot edit this article. If you want to comment on it, go to the forum