All Low Life Articles

Let me give an example by telling you how I botched the biggest golf payout of my chequered betting career and why I may be a good judge but a rotten punter.

I recently had the good fortune of meeting Fitzdares’ founder, Balthazar Fabricius, and was struck by something he said: that one of the reasons for starting his business was that gamblers were more interesting than your average person. I agree. We might be impatient, dysfunctional and reckless but I like to think this manifests itself...

It was 100/1 at the time. The horse in question was Corbiere. I backed Jenny Pitman to become the first-ever female trainer of the National winner from odds of 100/1 down to 13/1; unlucky 13 for some, but not for me. My collection of 50p each-way bets culminated in a fortune for a student, and I was hooked for life on the racing game.

Don’t try this at home: Stuart Barnes recalls a desperate last roll of the dice at Cheltenham

Three years after I had gone to Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory to run the high-stakes Aspinall Room in the Diamond Beach Hotel Casino, I met ‘The Whale’, Akio Kashiwagi. In 1984, Aspinalls was invited by the NT government to come and operate its two casinos – Darwin and Alice Springs – which it had compulsorily...

A gift from a dearly departed pal brought a slice of fortune in the 2016 Olympics.

You’re never more than six feet away from a stereotypical failed rugby player.