Feature Stories

The Fairest Game in the World

Running Wild

The Fairest Game in the World

[2009]

It’s 1941, and two coins are spinning in the air. In a large clearing in Lae, New Guinea, Australian troops watch with anticipation as the pennies soar above the spinner’s head, landing resolutely on the patch of ground cleared just for this game, just for these coins—just for two-up.

“It was very active. Everybody played it,” says Martin O’Sullivan, who served in the Australian army during World War II. It was Remembrance Day, just after 11 am, and I had made my way over the Clovelly RSL Sub-Branch to see what could be remembered about this fascinating game. Over Cascade Lights and a plate of sandwiches, three men sat with me in a back room, looking back on the glory days of two-up.

“All I ever did was lose money,” laughs Martin, his cane propped up on the table next to him. He picks at his sandwich as he talks, eventually putting it down and resorting to the beer.

Born in Canada, Martin left school at age 13 and learned to be a seaman. From 1939 to 1941 he travelled in the merchant navy, but jumped ship while in Australia. “I was in two fights,” he explained, “and when that ship left, I wasn’t on it.” Within weeks of his arrival, Martin joined the Australian army. He found two-up fascinating, and immediately joined in on the games.

Fifty years later, you can still see coins spinning in Australia, and people certainly still lose money playing. But now two-up is legal just three days of the year—Anzac Day (25 April), Victory in the Pacific Day (15 August) and Remembrance Day (11 November).

Odds are more than one in two that most of us here in the land down under have coughed up some serious cash in the fantastically addicting game of two-up, passionately preying for heads or tails, knowing very well that our odds for both are exactly the same. After all, two-up is a distinctly Australian gambling game, played illegally by settlers and convicts alike as early as their arrival in 1788.

What is it about this simple gambling game that has Australians so hooked? It’s been described by many as the “national game,” yet those unfamiliar with it struggle to understand what the fuss is all about. At a 1994 international gambling conference in Las Vegas, one analyst from Nevada University described the game as “simplistic and comical, with little intrinsic merit as a form of gambling.”

Yet every year on Anzac Day, thousands of Australians fervently gather in circles, eagerly anticipating the mere toss of two simple coins. Bridget Turner, Marketing Manager of the Coogee Bay Hotel, estimates that over 500 people participated in two-up on Anzac Day this year. “Sales were up approximately twenty percent,” she said. The CBH, which runs the biggest two-up game in the east, has it only on Anzac Day. Upon attempting to run games on VP Day, Bridget said, few people participated. “The customers needed to be educated on what VP Day was, and that yes, it was legal to play that day.”

At the RSL, I asked the men to help me understand just how the game works. Jim Rankin, of the Traditional Pipers of Clan McLean of Scotland, shared his recollections of the game during World War II, along with Martin. The two men finished each other’s sentences, added to one another’s stories, and bantered back and forth with each other. At times, they spoke on top of each other, their stories and opinions pouring out as if they’d been cooped up in their throats for years. Maybe they had. Then again, maybe the beers just had them particularly chatty, or the thrill of a woman under the age of sixty in the building had them fighting for my attention. Regardless, they both had stories to tell.

The term “two-up school” arose because the men who organised the games were called scholars; eventually this term was applicable to all players of the game, and “schools” thus developed. “A two-up school is just the game,” Martin explained to me. “Anybody could play, as long as you had money to put in.”

The game is controlled by a ring-keeper, who is in charge of watching the spinner—the person in the middle that tosses the two coins. The pennies used in the game are placed on the kip, a small piece of wood.

Robert McPake, duty manager at the Clovelly RSL, brought in the two-up set used for games on Anzac Day. Jim, eager to show off his two-up knowledge, gave me a live demonstration. “You could never throw it straight up,” he said, tossing the coins in the air with a spin. “You had to really put it into the air, and you had to turn it as you threw.”

The spinner, who stands in the centre of the circle, is obligated to bet that two heads will be spun; other players in the game can “go with the spinner” and bet heads, or “go against the spinner” and bet tails. Side-betters opt to bet as much money as they like, and “match up” with players who want to bet opposite of them for the same amount of money. Likewise, someone must bet tails against the spinner. Before two-up was legalised, the “cockatoo” would keep watch at the door, to prevent intruders from entering or to warn when officials were nearby. “Somebody always had to watch out for the coppers coming along,” says Jim.

If two heads are flipped, the spinner (and all of those that bet heads) has won. He or she may continue spinning the coins until tails are tossed, but cannot collect winnings until heads are tossed three times. If tails are spun, the spinner is no longer allowed a place in the centre, and must retreat to the circle. If one head and one tail is spun, then the spinner is said to have “oned” and may spin again. A white cross, painted on the coins that Robert showed me, was often painted on the tails side, to make it easy to quickly spot, and, as he pointed out, “so you couldn’t cheat.”

Back in the war, Jim says, it was all about “pounds, shillings and pennies.” There were no dollars, and men in the army earned just six shillings a day. This didn’t stop them from gambling, however. “In some schools, they bet ten shillings on one game,” he remembers.

“Whatever money you had, you’d put in two-up,” Martin adds. He recalls betting not

only shillings, but beer, liquor and cigarette rations as well. “We used to get an issue of one bottle of beer per week. I used to sell it. We’d sell it to the Yanks, get money from it and put it in the two-up game. We might even toss for each other’s boots.”

But it wasn’t always so easy to make or lose a quick buck—or boot. In the nineteenth century, two-up was played in the back yards of hotels or cemeteries for discretion, often with men stationed in treetops acting as lookouts. Extravagant tunnels were even dug to provide for a quick escape, and the transient two-up schools—operable almost anywhere there was a clear patch of land—often took place in clandestine locations.

Prudence continued throughout World War II. Jim remembers putting two-up coins in a matchbox, one on top and one on the bottom, so they wouldn’t make noise. “People would talk,” he said. “They’d say, ‘Well, he’s a gambler!’ if they heard coins rattling in your pocket.”

Joe Thommo’s two-up school in Sydney was one of the biggest shifting two-up games in the city; it thrived for over sixty years. Martin remembers the Thommo School as vulgar and prone to fighting. Higher bets were made there, he recalls, and more fights broke out because of its urban location. World War II soldiers carelessly spent money before leaving for international service, and veterans picked up the wartime game once they returned from active duty.

“All these men,” Jim said, “all they could do was drink, go with women, or gamble.” And gamble they did. By the late 1940s, Thommo and other two-up enthusiasts had developed a roaring trade. It even followed the men to Germany, where Jim was stationed. “Usually by late afternoon, we’d try to find some sleazy café that sold schnapps, or something like that. It was just men on the streets, and before you knew it, there was a two-up school.”

For the next three decades, two-up grew in Australia as anti-gambling legislation continued to be unsuccessful, social values became liberalised, and police were persecuting players less and less. In one unusual raid at the Echura School in 1975, a two-up player swam the Murray River in order to avoid arrest.

Before long, the onset of legal gambling activities swayed the interests of would-be two-up players, as off-course TAB betting and state lotteries were established. The new generation of servicemen, this time from Vietnam, preferred cards to coins. Managers of two-up schools began publically fighting for legalisation.

In 1973, two-up was legalised in Australia, at first in Tasmania. The game was legalised in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia in 1983, and in 1989 two-up was made legal to play on Anzac Day in New South Wales.

Robert, who ran two-up games on Anzac Day in 1994 and 2001, says he’ll never run a game again. “It’s just too violent,” he insists. “The bra boys raided the RSL in 2001, and we had to call it off.” Beer was even thrown on him, because, Robert notes, “it’s not a game that’s traditionally played sober.” The biggest game he ran was at the Coogee/Randwick RSL, where they had at least four policeman at the game, off-duty but controlling any threatening situations.

Jim agrees. “When you enter a two-up school, never go alone,” he advises. “If you have someone with you, you can mold into the group.” He admitted that even in the army, he always went with his mates. “Maybe five of six of us would go play two-up,” he said.

Martin, however, remembers it a bit differently. “There’s a certain amount of comradery,” he argues. “I don’t remember any fights. Everybody’s your friend when you’re drunk!”

The game has been subject to rioting, however. Robert reminded us that players can butterfly coins, by not spinning it properly, rig pennies so that they aren’t properly weighted, or even produce two-headed coins. “Everyone gets on the drink, and someone might throw up a two-header. You’ll see these guys start nodding their heads, and suddenly everyone’s betting heads. It’s regulated only as much as it can be.”

But Jim pipes up enthusiastically, eager to defend the game. “The honest game of two-up is a good game. If you have money, it’s all right,” he says.

In 2006, after a two-year trial period, two-up was made legal to play on three days of the year. “Only permitting two-up to be played on the three commemorative days recognises the game’s historical association with a number of wars over many years,” says a spokesman from the New South Wales Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing. I asked the men at the RSL what they thought about the extended legalisation of two-up, and they seemed content with the way things stand. “It’s a way of life,” Jim said. “We’re entitled to it.”

It should be no surprise that Australians are so keen on the game of two-up; after all, gambling has been a part of the culture since the beginning of European colonisation. A government report found that 69% of the New South Wales population participate in gambling activities, with over $10 billion spent on gambling related activities each year.

For Martin and Jim, two-up was a part of army life. As my interview came to a close, and Martin and Robert had left, Jim offered me his final thoughts. “We’ve all boasted about what we’ve done during the war,” he says, “and a lot of what happened is to be kept to ourselves. We saw lots of things. We’ve done things that we regret. But these things—they happen during war.” He sighs, looking off into the distance as images of the war flash before him. But two-up, to be certain, is not among those regrets. Men had little more than the boots on their feet and the cigarettes in their mouth; their lives could end tomorrow, or the war could go on for years. Why not risk it all with the flip of a coin? Bombs were exploding, guns were going off, and mates were burying mates far before their time was due. Whether a win or a lose, for shillings or for shoes—at the end of the day, two-up was nothing more than a sure bet for a bit of fun.

Running Wild

[2010]

It’s 4 in the morning, and Sydney is sleeping. Dark and odourless bakeries sit with gates tightly locked, patiently waiting for the sun to bring its hot cross buns to life. Taxis cruise around the block, hoping for an early morning traveller or a late night homeward-bounder. The only sound in the city is the steady ticking of the little green man, faithfully giving invisible pedestrians permission to cross the deserted road.

But the little green man is not alone in the early morning fog. If he listened, his little green ears might pick up on the sound of footsteps in the distance. Gradually, the footsteps come closer and closer, until the little green man realises that they aren’t really footsteps at all. Steady, rhythmic and relentless, the sound fast approaching is the sound of running. This is the sound of Matt Thorpe.

Matt, with no i-pod blaring neither latest hip-hop hits nor heavy metal 80s classics, is the epitome of focus. All that he hears is the sound of his feet on the pavement, and he pays no attention to the little green man. Though slightly hurt, the green guy grudgingly grants Matt permission to cross.

While lacking earphones, Matt is not empty-handed. He carries on his back a tent, a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, aspirin, bandages, food and water—all in a backpack weighing around 15 kilos.

One mile down; 49 to go, he thinks. He’s glad that he decided to wear his lucky socks today, a thick pair with silver lining woven around the edges. Then again, one might need a little more than just luck to run from Randwick to the Blue Mountains, a distance almost twice the length of a full marathon.

The six-foot-three 22-year old runs on. He’d never competed in a race before, never participated in a marathon, and had never received any instruction on long distance running. Yet to Matt, the Blue Mountains challenge was no big deal. In fact, he’d only had the idea a few days before.

“I’d been meaning to get to the Blue Mountains for a while,” he says, “and I felt like taking on a new challenge. I thought that combining the two might be nice, so I just…did it.”

But just doing it wasn’t as easy as Matt makes it out to be. He’s only been running seriously for about eighteen months, and the novice runner still has a lot to learn. “My ankles were hurting because I was running in the wrong shoes,” he admits.

Dr. Vicki Anton-Athens, a podiatrist with over twenty years of experience, stresses that wearing the right shoes is the most important part of running. “Not only do they help to prevent injuries, but a good pair of shoes will help to create a much more efficient pace,” she says. An effective running shoe should also absorb shock, control motion and be flexible as well as sturdy.

It’s not a matter to be taken lightly, either. A recent survey shows that the typical sports podiatrist recommends that a patient purchase a new pair of athletic shoes between 10 and 50 times per year. Matt was recently one of those patients. His worst injury to date, Iliotibial Band Syndrome (IBS) was the result of running in bad shoes; it kept him from running for half a year. “It absolutely kills,” he says. “I never want to go through that experience ever again.”

A native of Preston, England, Matt has been in Australia for almost five months. He holds a mathematics degree from the University of Warwick, and is working on a masters of mathematics at the University of New South Wales. Someday he hopes to be a software engineer, and currently works for UNSW as a mathematical analyst and tutor, writing questions and solutions for students.

As he runs towards the mountains, Matt thinks. “I daydream,” he confesses, “and nothing else is in my head except for my running.” For him, the sport is a personal activity, and while his trek from Randwick to the Blue Mountains is well beyond what many marathon runners dream of accomplishing, he says that marathons just aren’t for him.

“I would feel boxed in,” he says. “There’d be too many people, I’m not that quick and it just doesn’t appeal to me.”

For Matt, timing is nothing and finishing is everything. He’s not bothered one bit about how long it takes him to finish a run, or how many people get to the end before he does; all that matters to him is finishing. He never even thought of timing his run to the Blue Mountains, and rarely times any of his runs at all.

En route to the mountains, Matt frequently pauses to rehydrate. He stops just once, however, about twenty miles from the mountains. Between the 30 and 35-mile marks, he says, was when the going really got tough. “I never thought I wouldn’t finish it,” he says, “because if you think like that—you won’t. I just had to plough through.”

Shockingly, Matt did very little preparation for this run. In fact, when I asked him what he had been doing to train for this run, he informed me that this run was preparation for another run. He plans to make a 100-mile run by December, but hasn’t quite mapped out where exactly it will be. One hundred miles from Sydney would land him in Muswellbrook the north, Bathurst to the west and Berrara to the south. As soon as he finishes his exams for the term, he says, he’ll start running every day.

Matt’s longest run to date is a 58-mile run, which he accomplished in Australia just a few weeks before his Blue Mountains trip. He created a path around the city and to the north, but never knows exactly where he’ll end up before he sets out. “I just run,” he says, “and Google Earth will tell me later how far I’ve gone.”

When he finally arrived at the Blue Mountains, Matt was disappointed to find that the path he had intended to follow was closed. By then, however, there was so much strain on his ankles that he decided to call it a day. Actually, Matt’s journey did take him almost half of an entire day; he arrived at the Blue Mountains around 3 pm, 11 hours after he took off from Randwick.

But Matt says that he didn’t achieve what he said out to do. “I wanted to run there, spend three or four days looking around, run 25 miles each day in the mountains, then run back,” he says.

Although the path he sought was closed, Matt says that he still had an enjoyable trip. After stretching and finding a campsite, he pitched his tent, had a beer and a pizza, and called it a night. “That beer was one of the most refreshing I’ve ever had,” he laughs. “After a run like that, you can actually feel it after just one.” After ten hours of sleep, Matt woke up refreshed and ready for more; he ran an additional fifteen miles to Penrith, where he caught a bus and a train back to the city.

When asked if he uses running as a way to cope with stress, Matt looked at me with surprise. “Well, I don’t get stressed very much,” he says, “but maybe that’s because I run so much!”