By GRAHAM REID
Men in hats, that's what you saw. They niggled and argued. Then fists flew. Police were called, everyone was shoved outside on to Queen St, the doors were closed and order gradually restored.
Placing a bet at Auckland's first legal off-course gambling outlet was a tough and tetchy business in the early days of 1952.
When the newly created Totalisator Agency Board - the institution we know as the TAB - opened its first Auckland offices in the Civic Theatre, it suffered from queues and grumbles that its office hours weren't long enough. It quickly extended Friday betting until 8 pm, but on the first night tempers boiled as queues lengthened. That was when the fists flew.
Half a century ago Kiwis were mad keen to bet, and mad as hell when they couldn't do it quickly enough. There wasn't much else to do.
As British novelist Erik Linklater noted after a visit in 1951: "There are no theatres, pubs close before sundown and the restaurateur is, by law, strangled in his infancy.
"But ... in their passion for racing New Zealanders find an agreeable escape from the prevailing domesticity and their egalitarian regime [and] the anarchy of the race course offers a very pleasant release."
Linklater's contemporary encapsulation is quoted in a very readable history of the TAB by Wellington historian David Grant, Two Over Three on Goodtime Sugar.
Writing to acknowledge 50 years since the meeting of the first board, Grant traces the rise of a cautiously established Kiwi institution - which became a prototype for Australian state TABs - through to a business which today employs nearly 1200 full or part-time workers, turns over more than $1 billion a year and has, since 1996, accepted bets across a number of sports beyond its core business of horse racing.
For the David Tua-Lennox Lewis fight tomorrow the TAB will, for the first time, trial bets on boxing.
The TAB now deals with satellite feeds, fibre optics, and has had a public flagship with television's Trackside since 94, making racing the only sport with its own channel. Phone betting means punters can watch Trackside and bet without going near an agency. More than 21 million calls handling around 40 million transactions were made during Trackside's first year.
It's a long way from the TAB's modest origins in Fielding and Dannevirke in March 1951 - agency sites chosen because their populations were the minimum to be economically viable, and for their proximity to the capital.
Ann Amies, a 75-year-old Waiuku great-grandmother, remembers working with her father-in-law on the 1949 referendum to change the law to allow legal off-course betting. It began a lifelong association with the TAB which she continues today, assisting in her daughter's agency.
"When it started it was hard work because we wrote the tickets by hand and had to collate them. They were long days. All the dividends were worked out manually and last bets were taken an hour before a race closed and about two hours for the doubles. You weren't paid out on the same day, weren't allowed to have the radio on, weren't even allowed to give out results."
Surprisingly, this was considered progress. In 1935 illegal off-course betting exceeded £8 million and within three years, because of economic prosperity, that figure had doubled. There was money in gambling, and the politicians wanted a slice.
There was a perceived immorality to gambling, and church leaders, notably Protestants, spoke out against legalising it. But the omnipresence of bookies meant change was inevitable.
On March 9, 1949, a referendum was held to assess support for nationwide off-course betting. Only 56 per cent of the population voted but the result was overwhelming: almost 425,000 in favour, about 200,000 against.
The TAB was officially established on October 19, 1950, but the first agencies opened the following year - almost apologetically. They were relegated to sidestreets and alleyways, required to have unobtrusive entrances with little signage, and patrons were discouraged from loitering by the absence of chairs.
The betting age was 21 (today it's 18), and no other businesses were allowed on the premises. (In Waiuku, Ann Amies' daughter Joanne Mendoza runs a video store/TAB which complement each other, a not uncommon arrangement nowadays).
Quaintly, no information was given which could assist betting decisions: no names of jockeys or drivers, divisions, barrier positions, weights or handicaps. This was real gambling.
The list of persons not allowed on the premises was long and difficult to enforce: no prostitutes or persons who habitually consorted with thieves, no professional tipsters, house-breakers, forgers, those convicted of false pretences, assault or mischief, the idle and disorderly ...
"And they couldn't be anywhere near a church," recalls Amies. "I remember we used to have white paint on the windows so you couldn't see in. When they took that off and put up the TAB sign I had one punter offer to buy curtains so his wife couldn't see him."
Despite the constraints, the TAB could hardly fail with so few other entertainment options available. Following the successes at Feilding and Dannevirke, agencies opened in Invercargill, New Plymouth, Hamilton, Ashburton, Timaru and Rotorua. Within a year, from the end of 1951, the number of branches had grown from 10 to 167 and covered the country from, literally, Whangarei to Bluff.
Just as cinema audiences declined when television arrived, so too did track attendances with off-course betting. Small racing clubs were alarmed - the Hokianga Racing Club, formed in 1945, disbanded in late 58 after steady losses - but the TAB kept posting record profits. People liked it.
In 1954 the Auckland Star wrote that agencies "resemble nothing so much as the sedate premises of a branch bank. A visit there has become, for many housewives, as much a part of the weekend shopping as a call at the greengrocers."
"Oh, women would bet, too, of course," says Amies. "Some of my best customers were women. And the local Catholic priest."
Grant's history cites a 1954 observational survey commissioned by the TAB at three Wellington branches which showed that a third of punters aged between 31 and 51 were women. Most punters were "well-dressed" and many of the men wore suits and ties.
The TAB and racing were part of middle New Zealand life and becoming more so. Night trotting was introduced in late 58 and, despite Arnold Nordmeyer's "black budget" earlier that year, it became very successful.
Kiwis had more disposable dollars during the early 60s, and although the TAB faced competition from the Golden Kiwi lottery, it continued to grow. With track and weather information available, and updates on jockeys and scratchings, Kiwis took their gambling more seriously and did more of it.
But as the 60s progressed, television's growth, the relaxation of liquor laws, and a burgeoning restaurant culture meant increasing competition for the disposable dollar. TAB turnover started to fall markedly, the beginning of a cyclic pattern to be repeated in subsequent decades as other entertainment options such as videos, the rise of suburban malls and cinemas and changing hours for retail trade disrupted the once-sacrosanct Kiwi weekend.
In the 60s, for the first time but not the last, the TAB felt the threat from outside.
Racing also had internal troubles. It was a dodgy business.
"Owners, trainers and punters complained of unsatisfactory checks against doping and other malpractices," writes Grant, who dedicates a chapter to fraud and the TAB.
So the industry cleaned itself up, made its business more attractive.
Jackpots were introduced. Prompted by the Holyoake Government, which recognised that illegal bookies were making small fortunes out of it, betting was allowed on the Melbourne Cup and other overseas races.
The 70s were buoyant: profits in 1978-79 improved by more than 20 per cent on the previous year ($14.13 million) but by the early 80s the growth rate had slipped again as cinema bounced back, domestic and international travel became cheaper and liquor laws were further relaxed.
Responding again to the challenge, in 1981 the TAB engaged an advertising agency for the first time, offered more diverse betting options (trebles, quinellas and, from 1982, trifectas) and marketed itself through posters and on radio.
The theme was that racing was fun for all the family, and promotions such as mystery bets and Pick 6 (betting on six horses in six different races) pulled the punters.
But by the late 80s things slid again. There was a sluggish economy after the stockmarket crash, other entertainments and gambling options, people were working longer hours, and there had been a rise in awareness of problem gambling.
The TAB received a lifebelt in 1996 when it was allowed to introduce sports betting after a conscience vote in Parliament was passed 46 to 26. Initially the sports were rugby and league, motor sports, billiards and snooker, but very quickly softball, golf, tennis, soccer, athletics and others codes signed on.
It was immediately and impressively successful. Between August 1 and November that year turnover was more than $10 million, almost a quarter of that by phone.
Today the TAB will take bets on more than 25 sports.
"The most surprising thing about sports betting is how quickly it has become an important component of both our gambling and recreational cultures," says Grant, a non-gambler.
"Now sports commentators in their patter refer to the odds on particular teams, which suggests it was well overdue."
Today, around $60 million of the TAB's annual billion-dollar business comes from sports other than racing.
The TAB has been a barometer of our changing times. Early attitudes to gambling reflected our puritanical, repressive streak, and it is a measure of how much has changed that when the TAB has latterly wanted to close uneconomic agencies, locals protest and get up petitions.
An overview of the TAB's history, however, suggests it has been more reactive to social changes than anticipating them.
Admittedly it was often hamstrung by a conservative society and the reluctance of politicians to challenge it. To survive, the TAB has been forced to adapt and reinvent itself. It opened a website for internet punters three years ago and that has become its fastest-growing endeavour.
But this is a fraught area.
In mid-1998 the US senate voted to criminalise gambling on the internet overseas, and a year ago the Australians started looking at ways to control it.
This high-wired world also works to its own rules. The English site flutter.com, launched last year, allows punters to bet directly among themselves.
Although the site has a tabloid feel - bet whether Posh and Becks will announce before June 15, 2001, that they are expecting their second child - the time cannot be far off when punters will use the net to cut out betting agencies.
That's another challenge for the TAB - as is the plight of small and middle-sized racing clubs which are feeling the economic pinch.
Whatever happens next, the TAB and our attitudes to it remain an idiosyncratic microcosm of our country - from angry men in hats to the silently busy world of the microchip.
* Two Over Three on Goodtime Sugar: The New Zealand TAB turns 50, by David Grant. Victoria University Press, $49.95.
TAB celebrates 50 years in the betting business
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