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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed Sunday feature our Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: It is, of course Melbourne Cup Week and our interview

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Speaker 1: is on that theme. But it is a little bit unusual.

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Speaker 1: Way back in September of twenty twenty, back in the

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Speaker 1: early days of Fear and Greed and in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the pandemic, we spoke to Steve Mills, who by

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Speaker 1: day is one of the breakfast presenters on the Perth

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Speaker 1: radio station six PR. But he's also an old fashioned

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Speaker 1: bookie they can't just see at country races, which is

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Speaker 1: what this conversation is all about. I won't say too

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Speaker 1: much more because you're about to hear it. It is

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Speaker 1: a brilliant conversation, a brilliant interview by Sean Aylmer, a

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Speaker 1: great chat with someone who knows how to tell a story.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: Listeners in Perth would certainly know my guest. He's one

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Speaker 2: half of a very successful breakfast show on radio station

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Speaker 2: six PR.

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Speaker 3: But what's not so.

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Speaker 2: Well known about Steve Mills, universally known as Millsey really

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Speaker 2: is that he's the I'm the last of a dying breed.

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Speaker 2: He moonlights as a bookie a book maker traveling the

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Speaker 2: race meets in Western Australia to take some bets, meet

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Speaker 2: some punners, and hopefully have a better day than they do.

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Speaker 2: With the rise of corporate bookmakers, there are fewer individual

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Speaker 2: bookies at the tracks, so I thought it'd be interesting

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Speaker 2: to speak to Steve about the business of being an

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Speaker 2: old fashioned bookie. Steve Mills, Welcome to.

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Speaker 3: Fear and Greed. Thank you Shan, nice to be here.

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Speaker 2: How long have you been a bookie for?

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Speaker 4: Oh, probably just approaching six years now. I remember the

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Speaker 4: very first night, but yeah, it seems like only yesterday.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: You're a very.

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Speaker 2: Busy person, working very long hours already. Why did you

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Speaker 2: become a bookie?

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Speaker 4: I've burned at the track since I was nine, if

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Speaker 4: I'm honest. So I used to go with my father

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Speaker 4: and we used to take the bookies on and the

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Speaker 4: idea was to try and clean the bookie out.

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Speaker 3: So I always found that he.

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Speaker 4: Took my money and I thought he's driving in at

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Speaker 4: a pretty good came. We were leaving in a ute,

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Speaker 4: so I thought there must be a reason. I don't

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Speaker 4: think it's like that anymore, but that's the reason mine,

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Speaker 4: and every time I do it I think of my

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Speaker 4: dad because I would have loved to have him to

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Speaker 4: be involved, but at the time we obviously didn't have

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Speaker 4: the money. So we having a crack now and I

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Speaker 4: kind of have him in the back of my mind

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Speaker 4: when I do do it.

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Speaker 3: That's great.

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Speaker 2: So what does it involve? Does it mean reading the

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Speaker 2: form guide for days on end and then driving around

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Speaker 2: somewhere to turn up a meet for thoroughbreds or trotters

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Speaker 2: or greyhounds. Tell me a little more about it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I think when I first started, I would have said, yeah,

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Speaker 4: that's pretty well it, Whereas now you kind of get

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Speaker 4: a bit more comfortable and you kind of know how

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Speaker 4: to do it.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the.

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Speaker 4: Days of being able to lay a traditional book on

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Speaker 4: track is pretty well gone. And what I mean by

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Speaker 4: that that you could lay every horse. And what I

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Speaker 4: mean lay is that someone will back every horse in

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Speaker 4: the race and you balance the book and no matter

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Speaker 4: whoever wins, you're going to win. And in the old days,

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Speaker 4: the book is well, if you knew what you were

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Speaker 4: doing in your new percentages, you would win.

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Speaker 3: Those days are gone.

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Speaker 4: The people that punters are far more intelligent these days,

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Speaker 4: with information that you could only dream of having when

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Speaker 4: I was a kid, very well informed and so normally

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Speaker 4: it's very difficult to lay the entire field. So it's

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Speaker 4: kind of view against them, your opinion against their opinion,

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Speaker 4: hoping that you're right more than wrong.

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Speaker 2: And do you have to know more about the horse

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Speaker 2: that's running. You must need to know something about every horse.

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Speaker 3: Well, you need to have an opinion.

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Speaker 4: I mean, the problem is that some of the places

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Speaker 4: I go to Sean, I'm sure we'll just talk about that,

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Speaker 4: places that a lot of other horses would probably never

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Speaker 4: even heard of, let alone people. So whatever happens at

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Speaker 4: those tracks can be a form reversal shown on occasions.

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Speaker 3: So you have to have your.

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Speaker 2: Hear to the place, to the ground, I dare say.

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Speaker 4: In order to be able to work out what's going on.

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Speaker 4: You can normally tell where there's an avalanche of money

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Speaker 4: and you get knocked off your stand literally where you

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Speaker 4: put the wrong price up.

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Speaker 3: You certainly learn very quickly.

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Speaker 2: I remember many years ago going to listall races in Ireland.

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Speaker 2: In the last race, the horse that was running was

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Speaker 2: owned by the local policeman, the publican and the priest,

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Speaker 2: and absolutely everyone was on it. Everyone knew it was

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Speaker 2: going to win.

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Speaker 3: Well before it raced, including the jockeys.

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Speaker 2: Definitely, every input in they knew.

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Speaker 3: So where do you go?

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Speaker 2: You mentioned that, where where do you go to actually

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Speaker 2: be a bookie?

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Speaker 3: What races? Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Well, one of the reasons why I did get into

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Speaker 4: it is because, I mean, as you said, I work

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Speaker 4: in an industry like the media, but the racetrack is

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Speaker 4: like no other place. There's people there that have got

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Speaker 4: a lot of money, there's people that haven't got much

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Speaker 4: money at all, and it has an attraction for royalty

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Speaker 4: and also rogues. So I go far and wide, and

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Speaker 4: I do it because I actually like the experience one

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Speaker 4: driving to a country race meeting. I mean I drive

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Speaker 4: as far as about I think the furthest I go

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Speaker 4: on my beat is about twelve hundred kilometers there and

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Speaker 4: then five hundred kilometers back for a race meeting that

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Speaker 4: will last for three hours. Why you might ask, Well,

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Speaker 4: the characters you meet, the storylines that you actually get

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Speaker 4: can be pretty useful in my work on the rodeo

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Speaker 4: as well. But I just love it. I just love

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Speaker 4: the lure of the track. You either have got it

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Speaker 4: in your nostrils or you haven't shown. And when you

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Speaker 4: walk on there and have you smell that manure, you know,

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Speaker 4: you smell you smell the hot dogs you're cwa, you know,

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Speaker 4: cooking in the background. You've got, you know, the atmosphere

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Speaker 4: of people getting dressed up because that's the only advance

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Speaker 4: that they're going to go to where they can get

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Speaker 4: dressed up in an isolated town. That makes it so exciting,

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Speaker 4: and they're excited, which makes you excited.

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Speaker 2: So you turn up and you unload. I presume you

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Speaker 2: have a computer now that you don't use crayons anymore.

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Speaker 2: I'd imagine you use electronic boards.

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Speaker 3: They're gone.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, as far as the ease of the computer, that

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Speaker 4: certainly makes a difference. But it does mean that you

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Speaker 4: have to have access to power, and that's not always

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Speaker 4: that reliable when you travel. I tend to travel with

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Speaker 4: quite a bit of equipment, including back up batteries and whatever.

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Speaker 3: And you know, you think when you have.

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Speaker 4: A child that you carry a lot of stuff like

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Speaker 4: prams and all that kind of stuff. But when you

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Speaker 4: become a bookie, you go back to that existence. You

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Speaker 4: carry everything you can imagine because you don't want to

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Speaker 4: travel one thousand kilometers and your ticket machine doesn't work,

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Speaker 4: so you ye bear one of those, and you carry

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Speaker 4: us bear one of these and will it be running? Oh,

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Speaker 4: I might need a tar pole them, because you know,

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Speaker 4: it's not like the luxurious ramwick called Flemington or ascot

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Speaker 4: here where you're under cover.

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Speaker 3: No, you're out in the middle of the open.

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Speaker 4: You're in the outlet, so you've got to carry, you know,

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Speaker 4: stuff to make you don't get electrocuted. So it's it's

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Speaker 4: quite an effort to actually get set up and then

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Speaker 4: obviously at the end of the day pack up, and

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Speaker 4: then it's a long drive home if you lose short.

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Speaker 2: I bet, I bet. Had you said the odds, is

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Speaker 2: it all about your own knowledge or is it part

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Speaker 2: of what everyone else is saying and you're looking around

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Speaker 2: the ring and or maybe you're looking on your phone

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Speaker 2: nowadays and working out what odds are being offered.

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Speaker 4: What's funny you say that, because when you say look

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Speaker 4: around the ring, I look at the other bookmaker that

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Speaker 4: might be there. For example, I'm going today to a

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Speaker 4: raceman and I'll be the only one there. So I

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Speaker 4: mean your RM with a bit of information, and bookmaking

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Speaker 4: is based on percentages. And I'm not talking out of

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Speaker 4: school to say that what I want you to do

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Speaker 4: is to take under the odds, because that gives the

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Speaker 4: odds in my favor. The bottom line is that you've

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Speaker 4: got a bet to more than one hundred percent, otherwise

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Speaker 4: you'll go break. So to give you an example of

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Speaker 4: horses that the old even money, which is at two

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Speaker 4: dollars in the decimal, that's got a fifty percent chance

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Speaker 4: of winning the race, and of course, for example is

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Speaker 4: that five to one, it's got say a twenty percent

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Speaker 4: chance of winning the race or whatever. So you add

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Speaker 4: them all up the percentages, and they should come to

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Speaker 4: in those remote country areas from anywhere from one hundred

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Speaker 4: and twenty to one hundred and forty percent.

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Speaker 3: If you go to some really isolated race tracks. I'm

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Speaker 3: talking up the top end. You can't do.

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Speaker 4: Bookmakers betting too a lot bigger percentages than that, which

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Speaker 4: means if they back every horse for every dollar they hold,

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Speaker 4: they should make that percentage in excess of one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll get the mats of that. So

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Speaker 2: it's thorough BRIT's only that you do.

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Speaker 4: I started doing the trots, and I found that working

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Speaker 4: in breakfast radio was actually getting up early like two

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Speaker 4: o'clock and then doing a shift and then jumping in

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Speaker 4: a car and driving and then coming back. I found

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Speaker 4: that I was kind of pushing the envelope at bath

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Speaker 4: Fens and racing is you know, I love the trots,

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Speaker 4: but I also love the dogs, which I have a

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Speaker 4: license for as well.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I tend to.

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Speaker 4: Kind of involve myself with the races because I think

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Speaker 4: I understand that better than the truts. You have to

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Speaker 4: understand that if you can find the leader at the truts,

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Speaker 4: you can pretty well find the winner most times.

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Speaker 3: The same with the dogs. Yeah, fair enough.

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Speaker 2: Now, look, I was doing some research before I spoke

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Speaker 2: to you and came across the story about horse called

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Speaker 2: finbar Alley.

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Speaker 3: Oh my good, mean to you tell me about that? One?

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Speaker 3: Be gives me chills. It was one of my first pots.

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Speaker 4: I'd gloss to park finally and I filling at the

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Speaker 4: trots and I was involved being on the radio. They said,

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Speaker 4: can you also drive in a celebrity trot race? And

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Speaker 4: I'd never driven a trotter in my life, but I said, yeah,

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Speaker 4: I can do that. And I had my partner and

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Speaker 4: a couple of my staff said, you can manage the

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Speaker 4: stand anyway, I went and I did this race and

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Speaker 4: had a bit of fun, and then got back on

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Speaker 4: the stand and I looked at the pook and thought, oh,

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Speaker 4: I've got a laying number nine. It's a second favorite,

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Speaker 4: and I don't think it can win.

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Speaker 3: Anyway.

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Speaker 4: Blake walks up, so I'll have I can't remember the

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Speaker 4: vet Shawan, but it's a he won five hundred at

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Speaker 4: four dollars.

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Speaker 3: I said, that'll do. I'll take that. That'll be great.

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Speaker 4: But what I didn't realize that number nine was actually

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Speaker 4: a horse that was at twenty five to one, and

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Speaker 4: I've taken five hundred to twenty five.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow.

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Speaker 4: And I'm looking at the books on my just cut

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Speaker 4: along story short, I had a liability of twenty five

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars eventually that I had to pay this horse one.

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Speaker 4: So I wanted to panic made and tried to lay

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Speaker 4: off as much as I could, and yeah, what's the horse?

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Speaker 4: And it moved up down the back straight. I never

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Speaker 4: forget the caller, he said, and here comes Finbar.

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Speaker 3: There go rookie, but go, and I hoil.

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Speaker 4: I didn't win, but a lesson that you need to

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Speaker 4: be on your toes and you can't drive trot's while

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Speaker 4: they're actually bookmaking.

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Speaker 2: How do you handle the stress of it, because I

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Speaker 2: know that can make them break you. But you can

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Speaker 2: certainly be losing thousands of dollars in an afternoon quite easily.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I love days like where you're busy, Like

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Speaker 4: Melbourne Cup Day is. You know they made Christmas for kids,

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Speaker 4: they made Melbourne Cup Day for bookies because you know,

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Speaker 4: you get all the hunters there and it's just terrific.

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Speaker 3: And I'll back every.

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Speaker 4: Horse and you're on your toes and you know people

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Speaker 4: are backing every type of horse, and you haven't got

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Speaker 4: time to look at your book as much as you

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Speaker 4: like because you're riding tickets. You can be exposed. So

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Speaker 4: you've got to keep your wits about you. And the

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Speaker 4: key is not to panic. It's like doing anything in life.

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Speaker 4: If you panic, it's not really going to help the

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Speaker 4: cause you've got to try and regroup. And so I

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Speaker 4: what's the best way I can handle this? And sometimes

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Speaker 4: it's also a matter of believing in a great faith

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Speaker 4: and praying very strongly.

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Speaker 2: That the finding religion all of a sudden.

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Speaker 3: You find it very quickly out the rastroke.

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Speaker 4: As a bookie, I imagine I want to get rid

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Speaker 4: of one fallacy though, that everyone says that all bookies

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Speaker 4: are ritch.

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Speaker 3: That's not true.

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Speaker 4: It's extremely difficult with the overheads today of actually being

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Speaker 4: able to make a quid and the antimity that corporate

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Speaker 4: bookmakers actually provide punches these days make it extremely difficult

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Speaker 4: for on track bookmakers to survive.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's nothing like going up to the book

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Speaker 2: and giving him the twenty bucks that actually, it really

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Speaker 2: hurts when you give them twenty bucks as opposed to

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Speaker 2: transferring it electronically from an account and giving it twenty

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Speaker 2: dollars to a bookie. It really matters, I reckon.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but it also means that you know, the corporates

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Speaker 4: have got them covered because of the fact that it's

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Speaker 4: a bit like playing at a casino and you're playing

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Speaker 4: with chips. You don't even think about it as being

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Speaker 4: a twenty dollars do. It's just a chip? And the

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Speaker 4: same with corporate bookies. You're not even dealing with cash.

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Speaker 4: You're just dealing with the quick of a button. And

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Speaker 4: you know, I often think that those that have survived

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Speaker 4: the game and they've been able to transfer some of

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Speaker 4: their ability to bet off course and that's what a

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Speaker 4: lot of the bookies are doing in the major metropolitan tracks.

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Speaker 4: Can they survive in the long term, jez, I tell

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Speaker 4: you what it's I just see them declining year in

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Speaker 4: year out, and you know who will be the last

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Speaker 4: booking standing is a question that some people ask, and.

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Speaker 2: I suppose the loser in the long run is punters,

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Speaker 2: because the lesser competition, the less of the odds, and

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Speaker 2: the punters will lose out.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true, and you'll find that on course that

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Speaker 4: often you do get a better price, particularly if you've

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Speaker 4: got a relationship with a bookmaker. And the other thing

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Speaker 4: that people forget is that with a bookmaker, on course,

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Speaker 4: we have to bet you. So there's legislation that requires

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Speaker 4: me to accept a bet. I can't knock you back.

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Speaker 4: The corporates have been in that position where they cannot

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Speaker 4: bet back. New South Wales change that legislation. We're in

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Speaker 4: the process of doing it as well, where they have

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Speaker 4: to bet you. But there's other ways that they sneak

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Speaker 4: out of it by saying, oh, we've closed your account

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Speaker 4: down because we were worried that you might have been

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Speaker 4: a problem gambler, or they reduce the amount of money

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Speaker 4: that you can put in your account for the similar reasons.

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Speaker 4: So they've kind of got around that, and it's still

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Speaker 4: not quite right. But the excitement of seeing a racetrack

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Speaker 4: full of bookies is one that I'll never forget in

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Speaker 4: the healthy on days. And I just try a bit

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Speaker 4: like the old boxing promoters, and I just try to

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Speaker 4: keep that tradition alive by fronting out and driving a

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Speaker 4: thousand cars. But when someone walks up to you and

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Speaker 4: says what you do, you kind of scratch your head

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Speaker 4: and go, well, there you go.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like you enjoy the social aspect of it all.

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Speaker 3: I love it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean some of the characters who meet the

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Speaker 4: further out you get even better. But we're in a

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Speaker 4: great country no matter where. I'm sure if you went

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Speaker 4: to a race meeting in out back New South Wales,

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Speaker 4: at back Queensland, Victoria, anywhere, you meet characters, and that's

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Speaker 4: a good thing. You've got people that are living off

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Speaker 4: cardboard and they feed their horses more than they feed themselves,

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Speaker 4: and they're desperate for a wine.

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Speaker 3: People can do desperate things. You've got to be alert

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Speaker 3: to that.

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Speaker 4: But just the excitement that when the races come to

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Speaker 4: town for a lot of these tracks, it's a once

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Speaker 4: a year experience and you know we're part of that

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Speaker 4: where just one bit of the one bit of the excitement.

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Speaker 4: But it's an Australian pastime. I hope that it never

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Speaker 4: goes but there are people that are on the peripheral

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Speaker 4: that would like to see as finished. But I can say,

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Speaker 4: having been involved the days of the corruption and all

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Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, hopefully there behind us because with

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Speaker 4: technology et cetera these days, it's very hard to pull

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Speaker 4: a shifty what they used to be able to do.

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Speaker 2: And just finally has COVID affected things.

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Speaker 3: No, we got locked out like a lot of others

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Speaker 3: got like that.

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Speaker 4: We've been back now for probably about two to three months.

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Speaker 3: That's in wa.

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Speaker 4: I do know that in parts of other parts of

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Speaker 4: the country that hasn't happened yet. What was really fascinating,

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Speaker 4: Sean was that when they did say you can go

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Speaker 4: back on track, the numbers went up up by about

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Speaker 4: twenty five percent and we're still enjoying that. So thankfully,

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Speaker 4: situation with COVID hasn't been as bad as it has

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Speaker 4: been elsewhere in the country. But we've seen more people

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Speaker 4: come to the track because I think COVID gave a

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Speaker 4: lot of people an exposure to racing. When football wasn't

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Speaker 4: being played, people went looking for a sport and thankfully

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Speaker 4: racing able to continue, and they've developed a bit of

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Speaker 4: a love for the sport, which I've had since I

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Speaker 4: was a kid, and I probably will until I lad

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Speaker 4: this planet.

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Speaker 2: Well, keep going, Milsy, thanks for talking to Fear and Green.

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Speaker 3: Thank you soan great to talk.

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Speaker 2: That was Steve Mills, co host of The Breakfast Show

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Speaker 2: on Perth radio station six PR and part time bookmaker