A clock bag 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.[1][2][3] The bets, or "lines", inside would often be "rolled in bundles each marked by a pseudonym".[4]

Clock bags were in regular use in illegal gambling starting during the 1920s.[5] 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".[1]

It has been speculated that clock bags may have originated around pigeon racing.[5]

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.


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