Tim Galbraith has a simple philosophy: Never turn down a bet, no matter how small.
It’s a tenet passed down from his father, and it’s what helps make his bookmaking business the popular but intimate venture it is at Beverley Races.
Tim, 45, of Cherry Tree Lane, runs a well-known bookies at the Westwood along with his business partner Dave Money, following in the footsteps of his father Vic, who has owned the joint, as bookies’ pitches are known, at the racecourse for 50 years.
Tim and Dave may not be in the league of the likes of William Hills or Ladbrokes, but then they don’t profess to be and much prefer the intimate and friendly approach which helps them retain a loyal customer base.
Tim told HU17.net: “We go to every meeting and we have a lot of local customers who bet with us, they can have a pound, some ladies have 50p.
“A lot of bookmakers won’t entertain small bets but we take anything. My dad has always done it, he would never turn a bet down, and a lot of these people have stuck with us over the years, some of them old ladies.
“There’s 20 or 30 customers who come and bet with us at every meeting and we put some sweets on the top. They come and ask have we got any sweets if they can’t see them!
“One bloke brought us some gooseberry jam the other day and said, I made this for you lads. They look after us.
“We are on first name terms with a lot of them.”
Tim, a postman in his day job, was always going to be a bookie, even if it never really was at the forefront of his thinking.
Father Vic, who worked in the shipyard near the family home on Beckside, took football and racing bets from fellow workers and bought joints at Yorkshire racecourses.
As soon as he was old enough, Tim, a former pupil at Beverley Grammar School, would go and clerk for his dad, filling in the ledgers as bets were called and handing out tickets. All pre-computers, of course.
As time progressed, his friend Dave became involved and for the past 15 years they have effectively run the business as Vic, now 80 and recently retired, saw the old ways superceded by computerisation.
The pair now visit meetings all across the North of England – time permitting – and have their own joints at Aintree for the Grand National meeting, and at Cheltenham for the Festival.
They also go to many of the point-to-point meetings which proliferate in Yorkshire, where, Tim says, the best money is to be made.
Today’s business is a far cry from the old fashioned days of ledgers and tic-tac, and knowledge of racing is far less essential as all bookies are linked to the betting exchanges Betfair and Betdaq.
But there’s still room for a bit of opinion, as Tim explains, even though off-course, computerised betting seems to be hitting the profits to be made on course.
He continued: “You have to look at everyone’s prices, but they are all linked up to Betfair nowadays.
“You can stand there and no one on the course has had a bet, but because there’s been big betting on Betfair the price could drop.
“We are pretty opinionated though – if it’s a dodgy trainer or jockey, or the horse wants soft ground, we may see the horse is 2-1 with everybody else but we’ll go 3-1 because we think it will get beat.
“This has to be a hobby as well as a job – I can’t make a living out of it. It’s very competitive and the recession seems to be hitting home.
“You can go now and have the ability to take 2-300 bets a race but we were taking more money 20 or 30 years ago.
“But you do get a buzz from it and something different happens every day.
“For example, we went to Redcar the other week and the first four or five favourites won, we had done half our float in already and there were still two races to go.
“And then a 100-1 chance came in and we won on the next race and got our money back and that’s the way it goes.
“So we finished up with more than £100 than we left with, when we looked like doing the lot.
“You just get days like that.”