'In the car on the way to the races we'd go through our punters - how many bet in thousands, in five hundreds, in hundreds'

Barry Dennis, the bookmaker who became a well-known national figure through his frequent appearances on Channel 4's racing coverage, has died at the age of 83. Here, we revisit an interview the legendary layer did with Steve Dennis in February 2010.

The traditional image of a bookmaker is a big bloke with a loud voice, plenty of patter, plenty of personality, taking your money with a wink and a wisecrack, a little bit wide and larger than life. A sitcom bookie, composed of cliches, sewn together with lack of thought by an overworked committee of writers. Ladies and gentlemen, Barry Dennis.

There he is on his pitch at Lingfield in the snow, scanning the almost non-existent crowd for action, murdering Abba classic Waterloo in a hoarse, coarse voice as broad as the Thames at Tilbury because there's a horse in the race called Waterloo Dock. A steady stream of punters walk forward, hand over the cash, take the printout, return to the relative warmth of the grandstand.

Dennis is the only man in the ring today, all by himself with just three rails firms for company, so he's the centre of attention. But even when the betting ring is full of joints, full of boards, full of voices exhorting you to "take the 11-8", Dennis still stands out from the crowd and the punters still gravitate towards him, his magnetism drawing them in like so many iron filings.

"You can stand up and talk absolute total bollocks and they stand there and laugh, it's like being a comedian on stage," says Dennis. "It's entertainment and people like the magic and the mystery of it. There's no atmosphere at US tracks, French racecourses. Make them smile as you take their money."

Barry Dennis works his pitch at Lingfield in January 1997Credit: Edward Whitaker

Dennis is good at both, and his twinkly charm provides a conduit between the frequently sterile world of betting in the 21st century and the seamy shenanigans of a bygone age that beguiles the average punter into having a bet and an authentic experience at the same time. At 70, he's still standing up in all weathers, bare-headed and shrugging off the snowflakes, shouting the odds.

"Good or bad, snow or sunshine, I take it as it is. You never know what'll turn up when you go to the races," he says. "Punters always turn up. Yesterday at Folkestone there was a geezer betting £800 a race, never seen him before, don't know where he came from.

"Ten years ago, in the car on the way to the races, we'd go through our punters – how many bet in thousands, in five hundreds, in hundreds. They're nearly all gone now, mostly to Betfair, but cash punters still like the feel of drawing, still like a handful of notes.

"On the exchanges, or if you're betting on credit, that handful of readies is days or weeks away. But a geezer here can win a few bob, take his girlfriend or wife out, buy her a new dress, bottle of champagne, nice restaurant – he can enjoy the moment of winning much more."

'I'd laid Lester but I couldn't pay out'

Dennis the benevolent enabler of minor dreams fulfilled; but he didn't start out like that. Sitcom bookie drives a Rolls-Royce, possibly gold-plated, but although Dennis does have what the Romford street urchins he grew up with would call a 'flash motor' – it's a Mercedes – he also knows what it's like to reach for the bicycle clips after a bad day.

Inducted into the mysteries of racing by his stepfather via regular journeys to the street corner to buy the Evening News for the stop-press racing results – "On the way back I'd look to see if he'd be in a good mood or a bad mood" – he decided to put his experience to good use as the school bookmaker. 33-1 shots don't win the Derby, do they? "I was at grammar school in 1954 and I took all the Derby bets, shilling here, sixpence each-way, that kind of thing," he says. "Everyone wanted to back this wonderkid called Lester Piggott, and of course he won at 33-1 on Never Say Die – it was nearly as bad as Frankie's seven at Ascot.

"I couldn't pay. My paper round was 18 shillings a week and I'd done about three quid. Anyway, I'd heard that a bookmaker – he traded as George Brent – lived down our road, so I went to see him, told him I'd made a book and done my dough. He had a bloody great Vauxhall Vanguard and he said I could clean that to earn myself five shillings.

"Then I started working for him after school, answering phones. He was one for the ladies, liked to go out for dinner or to the pub, so I used to man the phones until the last dog race had finished. I paid off my debts and then started working in his betting shop on Saturdays, became the manager when they went legal.

"I applied for a few pitches and the Bookmakers' Protection Association said they'd put me on the waiting list. I'm ready now, I said, but it was 'dead man's shoes'. I worked as a drayman for a couple of years, then got into the Silver Ring at Romford dogs.

"Finally, someone must have died because the BPA gave me a pitch in the fourth ring at Brighton, by the winning post on the opposite side from the stands. There were six bookies there, clinging to the cliff, and that's where I started."

Legendary bookmaker Barry Dennis in the ring at Epsom in 2018Credit: Edward Whitaker

Somewhere along the way from there to here, Barry Dennis Middleton jettisoned his surname and became the man we know today. Now he stands in the front rank, taking the chance offered by deregulation and the financial helping hand of David 'Well Chief' Johnson, who lent him £250,000 to buy pitches, to propel himself to prominence. Turnover climbed from £1.5m to £15m in 2004 before levelling off and falling as the exchanges began to cut themselves a progressively bigger piece of pie.

Dennis reckons to turn over £5m a year now, £2,000 a race, working at 330 meetings a year in the south, racking up 40,000 miles in that flash Merc, sighing resignedly at the M25, giving back 93 per cent of that turnover and hanging on to the rest. He calls it a numbers game, and that, after all, is the essence of bookmaking. Some of the numbers don't always add up, the ones that concern the fixture list, prize-money and the levy, and Dennis thinks he knows why. His conclusion is hardly a surprise, but his solution is.

"The reason turnover has fallen is called Betfair. The same goes for the levy," he says. "It's all down to gross profits tax. Taxation has to go back to turnover, simple as that. No wonder there are prize-money problems, fixtures have increased and the levy has decreased.

"If certain companies decide they want to go offshore to escape a tax on turnover, the government will have to bring in some kind of legislation. And yes, it would cost me money, no doubt about it, but it might weaken the strength of what goes on elsewhere.

"The exchanges aren't bookmakers, they're like a guy taking a percentage out of every pot at the neighbourhood card school. They never have bad days, they never lose. They contributed £6m into the levy and gave another million to shame some of the others who went offshore. How much would they pay into the levy on a turnover basis?"

Those who don't go racing in the south will know Dennis through his 'Bismarcks' on The Morning Line, the gravelly voice gruffly torpedoing a short-priced favourite (he loves to stick his neck out and lay skinny prices), or through his column in The Sun. He has the highest profile of any independent bookmaker in Britain, but with that comes recognition both welcome and unwelcome.

It's all part of the game for Dennis, all the sort of give and take that doesn't involve folded banknotes, and he thrives on it. The atmosphere may occasionally darken – when punters talk through their pockets the language is not always parlour-room proper – but Dennis is always on the sunny side of the street.

Barry Dennis, pictured with John McCririck at Goodwood in 2002Credit: Edward Whitaker

"I like the recognition, but what the other journos don't have – all of you up there in your cosy press box – is that when it goes wrong for them, they're not on public view," he says. "Tom Segal, Matt Williams, they're not down in the ring when they get it wrong.

"When it goes wrong for me, a Bismarck wins or whatever, I get stick big time. You know what the drunks are like. You know what this game is like – you must never be wrong. It's not allowed.

"Do I have a thick skin? Yes and no. I give some wise chat back now and then but overall I enjoy it. By the time the next race comes round I've forgotten all about it anyway. There's always another race.

"Worry about it? Leave off, I go home, have a glass of scotch, take Marian out to dinner."

Or he might sit and watch the football, urging his favourites Tottenham towards a Champions League spot, or the cricket, his great escape valve from the smell of tenners and the days spent standing in the cold and wet. He follows the smack of leather on willow all round the world when he takes time off, leaving the job to his sons Patrick and Daniel.

And knowing what he knows – and there can't be much bookmakers don't know about the human condition, its flaws and failings – he'd do it all again if he had his time over.

"People have told me that I don't have the drudgery of an ordinary job. They look at what I do and they think it's a day out, which I suppose it is, really."

As the runners are loaded for the last race he gets down from the joint and is gone, leaving his sons to finish up, add up and pay out. It's not been a day to remember, too many favourites winning, but he'll be back again tomorrow. He disappears into the gloom, heading for his big car, heading for home and a glass of scotch. Sitcom bookie, stealing the show every time.

JP McManus: "What do you want to be laying, Barry?"Credit: Edward Whitaker

'God must have been a bookmaker' – the day Barry took on JP

I will never forget taking on JP McManus at Cheltenham in 2005. John McCririck was there with the cameras interviewing me before the World Hurdle. Baracouda was trading at 11-8 and Big Mac asked me what I'd lay it at, and I thought "oh, go on then" and said 6-4 Baracouda.

JP was by the pitch, and he asks: "What do you want to be laying, Barry?" The hairs on the back of my neck went up. Forty grand, I told him, and he said: "Is that all you want?" So I said eighty grand, and he smiled and said, "Well, if that's the kind of bet you want to be laying ..." So in the end I laid him 100 grand at 6-4. I had five staff on the joint and I told them to get going round the ring and see what they could do. Patrick came back and said: "It was never 6-4, and now everyone's heard you laid 100 grand we can't even get 11-8".

Anyway, we dodged about for bits and bobs, and by the time the race starts Baracouda loses me 80 grand. Coming down the hill, I'm looking for dangers and with two to jump there's only two in it and the other is Inglis Drever having lumps coshed out of it. I looked at Patrick, he looked at me, and we're both white as a sheet. But I tell you, God must have been a bookmaker because Inglis Drever stayed on like a champion and beat Baracouda.

Barry Dennis on . . .

Decimal odds

It won't happen. We'd all have to have our boards changed to put in two more lines of digits. At the moment, a board is £7,000 plus VAT. Two more lines of digits would make it £9,000 plus VAT for a board, and I've got three boards. Who's going to buy me my three boards? There are 400 on-course bookies, but Racing For Change just want an experiment. Right then, I'll pay out £30,000 for an experiment one weekend.

RFC have no legislative powers, they're not the Gambling Commission. It's only a suggestion. I have a suggestion for them – make it optional. Those who wish to do it can go ahead, but then I'll ask a question: exactly how many new punters will decimal odds bring to the races? Well done for trying, though. I agree with them trying to send Ryan Moore and Sir Michael Stoute on courses to improve their media relations.

Horseracing

Do I like it? No. I've been to the Breeders' Cup twice but never got beyond the third race, went to Melbourne Cup and Oaks day, just the same. I've been racing all round the world and it's bored me to tears. I don't bet on horses, although I will have a bet on the football. My wife Marian used to come to Royal Ascot with me, and when racing was over she'd say, 'Come on, let's go for a sing round the bandstand', but I wasn't having it. It's a job.

Retiring

Ten or so years ago I was in hospital having my right knee replaced. My eldest son Patrick – he worked in the City, a chartered accountant – came to visit and told me he was handing in his notice and coming to work for me. Five years later, when I reached 65, we had a talk and decided I'd take a bit of a back seat and just do the London tracks, while he did the Goodwoods and Brightons and Plumptons.

We started the new regime on a Monday and Patrick went to Folkestone. I got up, had breakfast, went into the study, read the Racing Post, didn't have a clue what I was going to do with myself. I don't play golf or anything like that. Marian said: "Do you want to come out shopping with me?" I said, 'Hang on a minute ...' and I drove like the clappers to Folkestone. Patrick asked me what I thought I was doing and I told him I'd just come out of retirement.

I'll just carry on – as long as I can pass the old-age driving test I'll keep going.

Read these next:

Sir Michael Stoute: 'I still enjoy it but probably not as much as I ever did' 

Nick Luck: 'I said then I could die a happy man. And weeks later I nearly did' 

Remembering John McCririck: 'All I ever was is a journalist - the rest of it was just frippery' 

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