Clock bag

A bookmaker's satchel, used for holding betting slips, circa 1935

A clock bag (or bookmaker's satchel) is a bag used in bookmaking with a lock and a built-in clock, intended to prevent fraud by proving the bets inside had been placed before a sporting event had started. The bets, or "lines", inside would often be "rolled in bundles each marked by a pseudonym".

Clock bags were in regular use in illegal gambling starting during the 1920s. In Glasgow during the 1930s, runners would collect bets in clock bags and then telephone bookmakers for the outcomes. This was a common practice called "shovel betting".

It has been speculated that clock bags may have originated around pigeon racing.

References

  1. 1 2 Huggins, Mike (2003). Horseracing and the British, 1919–39: Off-Course Betting, Bookmaking, and the British. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 79. ISBN 0719065283.
  2. ↑ Dudgeon, Piers (2012). Our Liverpool: Memories of Life in Disappearing Britain. Headline. ISBN 9780755364442.
  3. ↑ Wood, Greg; Paley, Tony (4 January 2012). "Talking Horses". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 August 2023. I know this book to be very readable because my brother bought it for my Dad for Christmas and he's already given me a lecture about what a clock bag is and how it worked.
  4. ↑ "Criminal Law and Practice in Scotland: Betting – Cash or Credit?". The Police Journal. 12 (4): 391–399. 1939. doi:10.1177/0032258X3901200402.
  5. 1 2 Clapson, Mark (1992). A Bit of a Flutter: Popular Gambling and English Society, c. 1823–1961. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719034361.