| Business Profile: BILL WATERHOUSE --THE BETTING MAN |
Bookmaking runs in the family.
Robert Keith-Reid
Bill Waterhouse? That's practically a household name in Australia. It's not unknown in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga. He's Australia's best-known bookmaker.
| Bill Waterhouse... Australia's greatest gambler. |
Waterhouse is 83. You'll still find him twice a week still taking bets at racecourses in Sydney and Melbourne. The bookie's art has run in his blood for more than 60 years.
Waterhouse dominated betting on Australia's race course for 30 years and who accepted what at the time was reputed the world's biggest horse racing bet.
Bookmaking runs in the family. His father entered the business in 1898/99.
He embarked upon it as a clerk at the age of 16. His son, Robbie, featured in Australian turf's greatest scandal, the 1984 classic Fine Cotton Affair, involving the substitution of a horse by one painted to resemble the real nag.
Waterhouse steered clear of that one, being completely innocent of it, he says, although the family association cost him his licence for a while.
He's been back on the turf since 2002 teaching the bookmaker's art to his grandson, Tom, 22.
“I became a bookmaker at the dogs and the trots, as well as the horses,” he says. “I think I'm the only person to do all those things at one time. I just loved it.
“I was the first bookmaker for a long time to go down from Sydney and represent Sydney in the Melbourne betting ring.”
In Australia, the Waterhouse name is a household one.
He recalls: “I started off as a clerk at the races when I was 16, which would be 1938. My father was the smallest bookmaker in the ring. Later me and my brother Charlie went from being the smallest to the biggest measured by turnover.”
Waterhouse's parents wanted him to be a lawyer, He did arts and law at Sydney University, but maths was his strength and racing his passion. He graduated in law and after the war worked as a barrister from 1948 until 1954.
“What happened was my father died. We had started building a hotel so I took a year's leave of absence from the bar to finish off the hotel. I took another year off and never went back to it. I learnt to become a bookmaker.”
He also got into the construction of private hotels and apartments. His career as a licensed bookmaker in his own right began in 1954.
What are the arts of a successful bookmaker?
Mathematics, figuring the odds and a lot of experience. It's a different world, he says. “I've found in my time that the game has changed two or three times. You've got to go with it.
“With experience you become very conversant with every aspect of racing. Just by looking out the window you notice the angle of the sunset.
“On the other hand, if the sun disappears, the clouds come and it's going to rain-all these little things when you are on a racetrack, they warn you.
“You are not allowed to have people representing you at each course at the moment. You work on the stand yourself.”
At least twice a week Waterhouse prepares himself in the morning, studying all his form and mathematics. Then he goes to the tracks and stands all day long from noon to 6pm, taking bets and balancing the books.
“I've never rejected a bet, but that's experience, you put a price on the board, you're not following somebody else.”
In 1968, the racing press hailed him as the world's biggest gambler when he took a bet for a A$1 million and lost.
Has betting taken him to the brink of ruin? “There was only one occasion when I was hitting a brick wall, as the saying goes. After three or four races the horses I liked were all under the odds. At the end of the day I got out. I had a hotel I sold recently for $100 million; that hotel was on the line.
“I've never had a losing year, although it's always been up or down.”
There are two kinds of punter, says Waterhouse, the professional and those in it for entertainment,
“The professional punter wins, but he's very, very hard to find. You never see him. As a rule he's off the track. You wouldn't know who he uses, what you call a runner, to put his money on. His whole game is to be hidden. Once people know who he is and what he's doing, he'll be the loser.”
What's Waterhouse's advice to people who bet on horses? Don't?
“No, no! It's like going to the movies. People who bet on horses who are non-professionals just place a limited bet. They won't lose that much and they get entertained. There's nowhere more exciting than being on the racetrack watching the horses.”
What about poker machines? “It depends on the way you look at it. In Tehran, where there's no gambling, I saw five machines in a luxury hotel with a queue of people playing. I said 'that's gambling and my friend said “No. it's not.” Do you see that sign above the machine? It says only 20% return. 80% is taken out as tax, which means you can't win.
“But people still want to play and when some coins come out they scream with delight. It's entertainment.”
Waterhouse's betting business reached into Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
At Sydney, says Waterhouse, the number of bookies has dropped “alarmingly”. “It used to be over 400 bookmakers and now I'd say there'd be just 30.
“All around the world horse racing is deteriorating because of competition. In America, which used to be the biggest horse racing country, it's now very ordinary.”
Now that his grandson is carrying on the Waterhouse tradition, he feels that the family connection with Australia's bookmaking business will be carried or for at least a few decades more.
In 2004, after his enforced temporary absence from the turf, Waterhouse was amused to win the Sydney Turf Club's award for the most improved bookmaker of the year.
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