It’s the game that refuses to spin out.
Two-up, a traditional Australian gambling pastime known colloquially as the soldier’s game, and played every Anzac Day around Australia, owes its popularity to the diggers who fought in the Great War.
But the simple game of chance could just as easily have been named after the gold miners of Kalgoorlie, whose obsession with airborne pennies has lasted more than a century.
In its halcyon days, the two pennies were tossed every day in Kalgoorlie, except miner’s pay day, despite the fact two-up was illegal until July 1983.
Forty years ago, amendments to Western Australia’s Police Act took effect, allowing the game commonly known as “bush two-up” at Kalgoorlie to be conducted by two individuals, Jack Sheehan and Nick Turich.
The pair had run illegal two-up games since World War II.
Today Mr Sheehan’s sons, Danny, Dave and Bill, are keeping the family tradition alive.
Games are still played at the iconic open-air, corrugated-iron shed, but they are limited to once a week on a Sunday.
While the mere suggestion might be sacrilegious, many regular players who spoke to the ABC compared their weekly gambling visits to a mining lease, about 7 kilometres from Kalgoorlie’s CBD, with going to church.
“The young blokes have become the old blokes, and the old blokes have all passed on, which is pretty sad,” ringmaster Danny Sheehan said.
“It pretty much is like a religion … we’ve got a crowd of regulars that are like a family, and everybody knows everybody.
“It’s not as big a game; we used to play every day, but with the development of internet gambling, we’ve really only got enough people to play once a week.”
Police raid
Before the shed was built in 1958, the location for games was changed constantly, marked secretly — sometimes using a 44-gallon drum on the side of a road — which would lead punters down a bush track.
As Dave Sheehan explained, police knew they were fighting a losing battle.
“The policeman in charge at the time asked my dad to come in and see him,” he said.
“The policeman said, ‘My boys have got better things to do than chase you through the bush every weekend’.
“That’s when this site was agreed upon.”
In the 25 years that followed, police tolerated two-up, much like Kalgoorlie’s famous brothels.
But that all changed on the eve of the Kalgoorlie Cup in 1982, when police from Perth raided the bush two-up as part of a crackdown on illegal gambling.
According to newspaper reports at the time, police charged 63 men with playing an illegal game, including Dave and Danny Sheehan.
“We had to go get our fingerprints taken in town,” Dave Sheehan said.
“Driving back to Kalgoorlie — and this is a true story, no word of a lie — coming the other way, and there was only one place it was going, was the Rolls Royce, with flags and all, of the governor of Western Australia.
“If they had raided it half an hour later, the police would have got the governor of Western Australia.”
That embarrassing near-miss was followed by months of lobbying to change the law from then-Kalgoorlie MLA Ian Taylor, who would earn the nickname among his Labor colleagues of “Two-up Taylor” before going on to serve as deputy premier.
‘Fairest’ game for punters
Like the Sheehans, Reg Arthur has been involved in the Kalgoorlie two-up scene for decades and remembers when police raided the games.
“I’ve been there when the cops came … that’s when I was young and did a runner,” the 93-year-old said.
“I reckon Usain Bolt wouldn’t have got hold of me that day.”
Mr Arthur said he had seen many fortunes won and lost playing two-up, which he described as “the fairest game in the land”.
“The smart player will win his $200-300 and stop,” he said.
“If you stay there, then you finish up without your boots.
“You’ve got to know how to play the game.”
Tourism value for city
Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s mayor, John Bowler, a former ABC journalist who reported on the 1982 police raid and the decision to legalise two-up in 1983, says the game has heritage and tourism value.
“Kalgoorlie was that frontier western town that had obvious brothels on Hay Street, and it had the two-up, both very illegal, but both tolerated,” he said.
“It’s Australia’s symbiotic gambling game, and Kalgoorlie’s the home of that game.
“It’s a fair game and I hope it continues, especially over the Race Round.”
The Race Round is Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s annual spring racing carnival and previously coincided with the World Two-up Championships, which has not been held in many years.
Dave Sheehan said the Race Round was by far the busiest time of year for two-up punters.
“One time a big willy-willy came through here over the [Race] Round and took the money up 100 metres in the air,” he said.
“There was notes going through the bush, people chasing after it, but yeah a lot of funny things have happened over the years.”
Future of the game
According to Racing, Gaming and Liquor, which forms part of the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, amendments to the Police Act in 1982 made it lawful for two individuals to conduct the “bush two-up”.
It means the Sheehans have to apply for permits every time they hold a two-up game, whereas their father and Mr Turich were covered by a so-called “grandfather clause” to conduct games at Kalgoorlie whenever they wanted.
In 1985, it became legal for country racing clubs situated outside a 200-km radius of Burswood Casino to conduct two-up games after the end of racing for that day with a permit.
Despite the bureaucracy involved, Danny Sheehan plans to keep the games going as long as he can.
“We’re just living in the present, and we’ll keep it going as long as we can,” he said.
The Kalgoorlie game has also had a recent injection of new blood, with Danny’s son Jack taking up the game.
Jack Sheehan said his first time in the ring was “nerve-racking” due to the “high stakes”, and admits his grandfather has left a large legacy.
“It is a bit of pressure [to continue two-up games in the future], I suppose,” he said.
“I enjoy working with Dad, counting the money and the interactions with people.”
Dave Sheehan said keeping the game running also kept his father’s memory alive after his death in 1994.
“He’s probably still watching somewhere,” he said.
“The only difference with the games now is women and cameras are allowed, and women are probably the biggest players here now.
“Other than that, it’s exactly the same as to how it was before.”
Browse for your location and find more local ABC News and information
Source: abc.net.au
George Barham, an accomplished journalist and avid gambling enthusiast, serves as the esteemed Editor-in-Chief at fly-to-australia.com, Australia’s leading source for comprehensive gambling news and insights. With an unwavering passion for both the written word and the ever-evolving world of betting and gaming, George brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the helm of our editorial team.
