In September I traveled to Manila and met Alan Woods, an Australian gambler who has become a multi millionaire betting on the Hong Kong races. The story is now featured in the current issue of The Monthly.

MR HUGE
Alan Woods and his amazing computer,
a nags-to-riches story
By TONY WILSON

I had my first bet the day I turned five. It was Cup Day 1977, the horse was Reckless, and for a kid on 50 cents pocket money I was too. Reckless. One dollar to win. Two weeks’ wages on the nose.

“Are you going for Reckless too Dad?” I knew he was but wanted to check.

“Yes.”

“How come you’re going for Reckless?”

I knew the answer to that one as well.

“Because of Tommy Woodcock.”

I shook down a plastic pig – fat, pink, traditional – while Dad explained once again about Tommy and Phar Lap and how Phar Lap had died in Tommy’s arms and how some people thought it might have been the Americans. Forty-five years later Tommy Woodcock, strapper to a nation, was training one of the country’s top two-milers and everyone, it seemed, wanted Reckless to win. Tommy was the glorious essence of old Australia and his horse was the people’s champion. Battlers made good the both of them. Dad told me that Tommy sometimes let kids ride Reckless before he raced. For me, though, the romance was in the casino maths.

“How much do I get if I win?”

“Reckless is eleven to two so you’ll get six dollars fifty.”

My brain didn’t yet do multiplication but it did do greed. Six dollars fifty. Thirteen weeks’ wages.

“Do you think he’ll win?” I asked, still gripping my dollar.

“Maybe,” Dad said. “You better give me that though. For real bets you have to spend your own money.”

“And here comes Reckless!” A barbecue-worth of people rose out of deckchairs and screamed at the transistor radio. “Come on Reckless!” There was shouting and shushing as people leaned in to catch the commentary. “Gold and Black in front, Hyperno running on, Reckless still coming on the inside!” There was a crack in commentator Joe Brown’s voice. He was barracking too. Reckless was going to do it. For Australia and for Tommy Woodcock and for poor dead Phar Lap; for me, Dad and my dollar. He was just a horse and yet he knew it was my birthday. “Gold and Black a length in front, Reckless grinding away …” The shushers lost the war and the commentary was drowned in shrieks. Somewhere in the belly of the mob was a radio. “Go Reckless!” I whimpered. “You can do it.”

He couldn’t do it. The Bart Cummings-trained Gold and Black held on by two-and-a-half lengths; it was the 7/2 favourite after all. Reckless finished a brave second. “Oh well, at least we get our money back,” a man called Vern chirped into the communal past-the-post sigh. He raised a glass. “Good on ya Tommy.”

I walked over to Dad, palm outstretched.

“Sorry Tone. Reckless didn’t quite get there.”

“But Vern said …”

There followed a lesson about win and place betting and a stubborn refusal on Dad’s part to give me back my dollar. I cried. It was my birthday. I wanted my dollar back.

“Tony. I can’t give you your dollar because I don’t have it. You lost it to the TAB. The government has it. But you should remember the day you bet on Reckless and lost because that’s what happens when you bet on horses. You lose. You might win for a bit but then you’ll lose, because the system is set up that way.” He bent down to wipe away a few tears. “It’s good that you lost that dollar. The worst thing that can ever happen is to think that you can win on horses. You can’t win. Say it after me – nobody ever wins.”

“Nobody ever wins.”

“That’s right. The odds are against you. Nobody ever wins. Now go and grab yourself a sausage.”

******

It’s September 2005 and I’m sitting in a beanbag on the 32nd floor of a luxury Manila apartment block, structuring a sentence that I suspect is going to end with “if that isn’t a rude question”. I know the man opposite me is worth at least US$150 million, I know the vast majority of his fortune has been won on the Hong Kong races, and I know he dislikes being asked how much he is worth. Nevertheless I have to go for it – because the how-Alan-Woods-became-a-successful-gambler story doesn’t pack the same punch without the how much.

I ask the question and we bathe in its stench for a few seconds. Alan runs a hand through his white game-show host hair.

“Hundreds of millions Australian,” he says. “Much less than a billion.”

I pluck another number and ask higher or lower. Now I’m the game-show host. Alan’s reply is slow and measured.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t exactly know. I’ve deliberately tried to not work it out … In terms of net worth, can I say between $200 million and $500 million Australian?”

I swallow. My father lied to me. Lied to a five-year-old and sent him off to eat sausages.

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To find out how Alan did it, grab a copy of The Monthly at your local newsagent or bookstore.