Betting man's advice: never risk the lot

By Kate McClymont
December 28, 2005 SMH

"MY FATHER was a gambler. Every man who ever created anything was a gambler," Kerry Packer once said. "I am also, but there's a difference … I've never risked the lot. I've never risked anything that's going to put Consolidated Press at risk."
While he became Australia's richest man with his successful gambling forays on the business field, Packer's activities at the track and in casinos around the world are legendary. And while he might have been careful not to risk it all, Packer was never averse to challenging others, whether casino operators or bookmakers, to risk their all to take him on.
There is the famous tale which has Packer ensconced in the high-roller suite at a Las Vegas casino with a big-talking American businessman. The loud American let it be known that he was worth some $US60 million ($82 million). Packer reputedly said nothing. Then, without raising his eyes from the table, said: "Toss you for it."
In The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer, the author Paul Barry wrote: "As one of his executives put it, he gambles when he's bored, and he gambles often because he's often bored."
The months after Packer's billion-dollar sale of Channel Nine to Alan Bond must have severely tested the media magnate's boredom threshold. Two months later, in March 1987, Packer lost $19 million playing blackjack at the Ritz in London.
At Easter he was back in town for the Golden Slipper at Rosehill where it was alleged that Australia's richest man wagered $20 million in one day and finished the day $7 million worse off.
Sydney bookmaker Bruce McHugh hung up his bookie's satchel at the end of that autumn's racing after what observers described an an unprecedented betting duel with the media tycoon which was estimated to have topped $50 million in three days.
Packer's forays into the business of gaming were increasing at the time of his death. Publishing and Broadcasting Limited appeared to be looking to casinos and online gaming to provide future profits as free-to-air television revenue continued to slow. Already the owner of Melbourne's Crown Casino and Perth's Burswood Casino, PBL turned its attention to the potential riches to be reaped in Asia.
And another of Packer's gaming ventures appears finally set to fly. The Tasmanian Government recently announced it would grant Betfair Australia, a $60 million joint venture between PBL and the British company Betfair, the first Australian betting exchange licence.
With Packer's passing, it appears likely that James Packer will follow the money trail which leads towards Asian gamblers.
As he said recently: "I'd hate to be [Ten executive chairman] Nick Falloon. I'd be going to bed in a cold sweat each night … to have 100 per cent of your business in free-to-air TV, in one platform, in a platform which has enormous challenges. We don't have that problem.
"Nine is about 20 per cent of our business. In a perfect world Nine will grow, but its share of PBL earnings will decline and that is a happy outcome."