Tic-tac (horse racing)
Tic-tac (also tick-tack and non-hyphenated variants) is a traditional method of signs used by
In a newspaper interview in March 1937 Charles Adamson, a retired bookmaker of Ashford, Middlesex, said he and his brother Jack (John Thomas Adamson) had invented the tic-tac system and first began to use it in 1888.[2]
A few simple examples of signals:
- Odds of 9/4 ("top of the head") – both hands touching the top of the head
- Odds of 2/1 ("bottle") – right hand touches nose.
- Odds of 10/1 ("cockle" or "net") – fists together with the right-hand thumb protruding upwards, to resemble the number 10
- Odds of 11/10 ("tips") – hands together and touching all fingers on both hands together
- Odds of 5/4 ("wrist") – the right hand is moved to touch the left wrist. [3]
- Odds of 33/1 ("double carpet") – arms crossed, hands flat against the chest
Within the UK there are some regional variations in the signals, for example in the south odds of 6/4 are represented by the hand touching the opposite ear, giving the slang term "ear'ole", whereas the same odds are indicated in the north by the hand touching the opposite elbow ("half arm").[citation needed]
Some of the signals may be called out verbally too. These names have evolved over time in a mixture of
Essentially, bookmakers use tic-tac as a way of communicating between their staff and ensuring their
British racing pundit John McCririck used tic-tac as part of his pieces to camera when explaining the odds of the horses for the next race.
While this method of communication is used less frequently than before, many of the terms persist.
Tic-tac terms
Odds
- Bottle – 2–1
- Burlington Bertie – 100–30
- Carpet – 3–1
- Century – 100–1
- Ching – 5–1
- Cockle – 10–1
- Double carpet – 33–1
- Double net – 20–1
- Double tap – 15–8
- Ear'ole – 6–4
- Elef – 11–1
- Elef a vier – 11–4
- Enin – 9–1
- Exes – 6–1
- Face – 5–2
- Handful or hand – 5–1
- Levels (you devils) – evens
- Macaroni – 25–1
- Major Stevens – evens
- Net – 10–1
- Net and bice – 12/1
- Net and ex – 16/1
- Net and rouf −14/1
- Neves or nevis – 7–1
- Neves to rouf – 7/4
- Pony – 25–1
- Roof or rouf – 4–1
- Sais a wang – 6–5
- Scruffy and dirty – 100–30
- Shoulder – 7–4
- Shoulders or On the shoulders – 9–2
- Straight up – evens
- TH – 8–1
- Tips – 11–10
- Top of the head – 9–4
- Up the arm – 11–8
- Wrist – 5–4
- Xis – 6–1
Other terms
- Beeswax – tax
- Jolly – a favourite
- Kite – a cheque
- Knock – not pay up when owing
- Pony – £25
- Ton – £100
- Monkey – £500
- A bag (of sand) – £1000
- Rock cake – a small bet
1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 30 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Levels (you devils) or Major Stevens or Straight up = evens |
||||||
2 | Bottle | ||||||
3 | Carpet | ||||||
4 | Roof or Rouf |
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5 | Ching or Hand or Handful or Monkey |
Face | Wrist | ||||
6 | Exes, Xis or Tom Mix |
Ear'ole | Sais a wang | ||||
7 | Neves or Nevis |
Neves to rouf or Shoulder |
|||||
8 | TH | ||||||
9 | Enin | Shoulders or On the shoulders |
Top of the head | ||||
10 | Cockle or Net |
||||||
11 | Elef | Elef a vier | Up the arm | Tips | |||
12 | Net and bice or Stretch |
||||||
14 | Net and rouf | ||||||
15 | Double tap | ||||||
16 | Net and ex | ||||||
20 | Double net | ||||||
25 | Macaroni or Pony |
||||||
33 | Double carpet | ||||||
66 | Double double carpet | ||||||
100 | Century | Burlington Bertie or Scruffy and dirty |
References
- ISBN 1852916001.
- ^ Reynolds's Newspaper 28 Mar 1937 p. 7
- ^ http://promo-code.co.uk/a-guide-to-tic-tac/ A Guide To Tic-tac Archived September 30, 2015, at the Wayback Machine