Ladbrokes

Nima had noticed the slip of paper on the table in my room. I'd bet Holland would beat Romania in a Euro 2008 qualifying match - It turned out that I lost my ten pounds on it, but I kept the slip with the handwritten wager because it was my first and because I liked the thought of finding it one day stashed away among other pieces of paper. "The horses, eh?", he asks. "No, just the sports", I reply. "You should teach me the horses. There's a Ladbrokes around the corner". He was up for it.

I had met Nima on a trip to Cardiff last month; the planning had been too last-minute for most people on Couchsurfing, but luckily on those two days Nima did not have anyone else staying over. He was a student in Cardiff; he worked two jobs saving up for long periods of travel -- this time to go to South America next month. His Iranian passport was full of entries from strange wondrous countries, and I loved the moment of confusion before figuring out that it, too, read from right to left. He was in London now for a Uruguayan visa, I gratefully returned the couchsurfing favour. I met him at my tube station that evening after work. As we walked home he started telling me a funny story of his visit to the Embassy that morning, one in which the Uruguayan Ambassador mistook him for someone else and welcomed him to the premises as he would an important guest, and an appointment which ended with the Embassy staff begging him to accomodate her country in his still-tentative itinerary, "You must go to Uruguay too." "They haven't seen an application in a while," he joked. Probably; that might explain the Ambassador's reaction too. I asked him about work, when I was in Cardiff he had been working extreme hours saving up for this trip; one of his jobs was as a bartender, and I remembered then that the other was at Ladbrokes.

"I'm not supposed to bet here", he says with a purposely wicked grin as we entered the Ladbrokes on Kilburn High Road. "But it's ok, they don't know."

For a long time, when I read these words in a small story in The Hindu's sports pages, next to the bigger stories that would deliciously heighten the anticipation on the Sunday before Wimbledon or on the first morning of an Indian tour, I didn't know that "William Hill" and "Ladbrokes" and "odds" even had to do with betting (Bet was a term I knew though, this was a time when you made three bets in a week with older, obviously idiotic cousins). My understanding of the numbers was vague. While I came to decipher that if there was a 2:1 and a 7:2 then the 2:1 was usually the better player or team, I didn't know what those numbers were there for. So what I associated with Ladbrokes or William Hill (Was he a real person saying things before matches?) was just that - small stories in The Hindu that also added somehow to the anticipation of the cricket you were coming home half-day from school for.

When I entered a William Hill for the first time here a few months ago, I loved it immediately: even from the door, you can see the grid of televisions on the wall all tuned into sports; inside, there are comfortable chairs to sit in and watch. It is the one establishment on a high street that you can duck into to escape the cold or the rain, sit down, and not have to buy anything. And once inside, you could agonize over tantalizing questions: Can Liverpool win away this weekend? Will Torres score? Will India beat these odds in the First Test? I hope they win.

So I've gone in once in a while, checked the website occasionally for good odds, lost more than I won. But it's fun. I haven't bet on the horses though. I know nothing about horses and the intricacies that are no doubt involved in placing a good bet; it seemed foolish to gamble on something I had no idea about. But I was and am curious: Nima liked to bet on horses, at the same time he was on the other side of the fence and observed people in that process.

We were inside standing at the sheets of listings on display on a high counter along the sides of the shop. Nima points to the listing for the next race. It is at a course called Kempton, he reads the odds below the names of the horses and points to the horses' recent results, at the bottom of the page. By the counter there is a clutch of small red pens and sheafs of paper, "Ladbrokes" printed on top like a letterhead and regulations listed on the other side. The next race is at 7:10. 'Formidable Guest', he scribbles on the slip. "The names, eh?" I say. The names of the horses were, I remember, the only thing I looked at in the Racing headlines -- an especially memorable one is Onnu Onnu Onnu -- in time it became one of those little things in that enjoyable daily routine of reading everything in the sports pages. "All kinds of names man", he says to that a little wearily, in the tone of a man who has to listen out for far too many eccentric christenings every day to find them curious anymore. He asks me to pick three horses, one for each of the next races, and writes them down. I go to the counter, and copying what he'd written on his slip, added, hesitantly, 'Tricast' below it. "You want that Tricast, yeah?", asks the lady at the counter. "Yes", I nod knowledgeably, trying to remember which one Tricast was.

In between races, when we're waiting for the next one to start, when we've stepped out for a cigarette, we talk about the people who've come in to the shop when Nima was working. Like the man whom he saw at the shop everyday, betting a lot, and apparently losing a lot. Nima made him aware of the option of signing a Self-exclusion form - if he signed it, he could get himself barred from using a betting agency for six months. The man filled the form that day and left; two weeks later, he came back asking Nima if he could place just one bet. It was against the law if the shop did allow him. The man left that day, Nima hasn't seen him since.

He tells of a woman who came everyday, bet a lot, lost a lot, won a lot. She was a call girl, she came to the shop between shifts. And of the cocaine dealer who came in every few days, and placed large, irrational bets on the horses and the greyhounds. If he lost, he wouldn't care. If he won, he'd ask for a receipt. How black turns to white.

I ask him if people lose more than they win. "Yeah", he replies. "A lot more than they win."

Back inside, there is still five minutes for our race to start. The odds for Noah Jameel, the race favourite, have lowered. "Lots of people betting on that one." The other screen is tuned into virtual racing. These are computer generated "races" on big screens and fake horses running on a fake racetrack. The first time I saw it at a Ladbrokes, I couldn't actually believe it; the idea seemed then, as it does now, ridiculous. I ask Nima if they are as popular, and followed. Yes, he says, just as much. Near me, a man is standing gaping at the pixellated figures moving across the screen, visibly egging his virtual horse on.

Horse racing, real live horse racing, is an activity one thinks of as a sport. It is stark however, when it is played out in a betting shop. There are television cameras at the starting line and even excited commentators, but around the horses and jockeys and support staff there is not a single person around. These races were happening at night, and in these barren arenas, they played out under glaring lights that accentuated the dark. There is no one to cheer a horse on (except these men around me hoping to multiply their money), no visible joy around the jockey when he has won, or sadness when he has lost. It does not seem to make a difference. The only other times I have watched horse racing is when ESPN was showing one of America's Triple Derby and I happened to switch the TV on. Of course there was betting, but you could also see achievement, emotion, pride in those close-up shots of jockeys and owners, in the crowds... those events seemed to mean something to someone. Here, on the screen that says Kempton on the right hand corner, there is a 6:56 race, a 7:10, then a 7:23. At the finish line, the camera, its job complete, is quickly cut off by a screen showing results and odds even as countdown to the next race begins; winner and participant forgotten by all except those now queueing up for their winnings. I turn to the other screen, there the virtual horses have names too, and they too are running to tick-tock schedule: a 6:59, a 7:15, a 7:28.

Nima gives me tips on combining bets. And what to do with those terms, Double, Either Way, Tricast. "But always look at the race's Class", he instructed. We schemed a nifty little combination bet on the football that evening (we lost). We stayed for a couple of more horse races, tried permutations on our betting slips, generally cursed our luck that evening. I was no expert now, but at least I could find my way around walking into a Ladbrokes on the street when it had started to rain and I had time to kill.

He gives me final tips as we're leaving: "I've seen people lose a lot of money man, don't do more than 50p on a single bet." "Don't play all the time," he adds with a laugh but only half-jokingly. The caveat is probably unnecessary. There have been one or two ill-predicted football bets, but I haven't looked at the horses at a bookie's after that evening. While it is still fun to ponder over who might score a century in the next Test, the horse racing bit has always felt more like curiosity than interest. "Play only when you're free and you have a couple of hours." Maybe.

In time I learnt what those numbers represented -- eventually an older cousin will explain it to you, a stinking smirk on his face that you actually didn't know ("See da, on this guy if you put five rupees you will get eight rupees back") -- and I began to figure out that small story in the back page. But as I discovered the morning after coming to London, it was those early, unknowing associations that were stronger; when I saw the red and white Ladbrokes sign for the first time, it evoked the exact same feeling I had when someone here spoke of Test Match Special. There are times when I look at the odds for the next football match pasted outside a Ladbrokes or a William Hill as I'm walking or cycling by. At other times, like when I am inside a bus, I cannot, do not, see the odds. All I can see is the signage, the name of the place on the board outside. And just for a moment there is a flash, a jumble, of all those early associations of cricket and tennis and childhood.

Is William Hill a real person saying things before matches?