Horse-racing in Zambia

The Zambian Copperbelt of decades ago was not for the faint-hearted. For instance, European miners were paid footage bonus (for the distance they blasted out rock tunnels underground), powder bonus (according to the amount of explosives they did not use) and a bonus based on the price of copper. This meant during the Korean war that European miners were paid upwards of £1,000 per month and whisky was ordered by the case with the bills at the booze merchants deducted from their pay by the mining company. From time to time haste led to an absence of care and a body or two could be blasted to smithereens. 

Horse-racing in Zambia was rigged and small fields led to variations in results which were hugely profitable to those in the know. Sometimes I knew and since I love gambling on horses I was always prepared to give it a go. And in this climate I was employed on the Zambian Copperbelt in 1972 where Zambian bookmakers (always Europeans) varied according to their propensity to take risk. They gave it a go. 

As it happens a rather cocky young Greek bookie, Basil Liamis, used to receive a telex from Reuters in London giving out the expected odds on British horse racing. (The Greeks played poker day and night every day and the sums won and lost were vast - £10,000 lost in an evening in then money (perhaps £200,000 today) was by no means unusual.)

One day I was looking at the odds and chanced upon the fact that the British trainer, Henry Cecil, had an entry in England in a handicap priced at 12/1. Given that Cecil was an extremely capable trainer, I decided that this was a most improbable price advice and so I put £300 on with Basil to win £3,600 (or perhaps £72,000 today). After a forty-five minutes stewards' enquiry the result came through in my favour. Basil declined to pay. He said that the price should have been 2/1.

However, Zambia had a statute enforcing gambling debts (possibly then the only country in the world) and I sued. I used a pugnacious Scottish solicitor to commence the action. It was here that Basil hit trouble in that his elders and betters said he would have to pay - I am sure they were impelled by Basil's cockiness. I myself doubted the justice of my action on the grounds that there had been a fundamental error. But I stood my ground (this was my right) and a few days later got paid in full.

Was this rough justice? I shall never know but I learnt that being cocky can cause one trouble.