Two Up in Kalgoorlie

Festival Location: Kalgoorlie, WA, Australia

Festival Type(s): Traditional Festivals, National Festivals

Two Up in Kalgoorlie Media:

Two Up in Kalgoorlie

By: © John Dodson 2009

It's a well-known fact that Australians will bet on anything. Two flies climbing a wall will attract a bet on which one will reach a particular position first. There's also a well-known Australian pastime of dividing a sports-field into a number of squares and letting a cow loose after priming it with large amounts of food. Punters then select a square and place their bets. Whichever square the cow poops in is the winner - very enthralling that. Can be some disputes if the grass is greener at one end of the field. But already I digress, as this tale's all about two up.

Two up is a very complex betting game where a person (known as the Spinner) places two pennies on a flat piece of board and flips them into the air. They must spin or it will be declared a mis-throw. The coins used must be pennies. For those of you who don't know what a penny is, it is a large copper coin of relatively little value that went out of date in 1966 when Australia went decimal. The Australian Government had little thought for tradition when they designed the decimal coins. The pre decimal coins were large, heavy and you really felt they had value. The silver coins even had some silver in them so you could at least melt them down and sell them for the metal content when inflation had destroyed their value as a coin. What were they replaced with? Small insignificant coins made of inferior metal of little value. One and two cent coins have already gone. This would not have happened if they had been modeled on the penny.

Sorry, totally off the point again but I am passionate about the loss of the penny......and the deener and the zac and the bob, but that's a whole other story. Where were we? I remember, we were talking about two up in Kalgoorlie, although I hadn't actually gotten round to Kalgoorlie as yet.

Not everyone goes to Kalgoorlie but they should. It is a remarkable town. It was - and indeed still is - a gold mining town in Western Australia. If you are driving to Perth you'll need to deviate off the main highway but it's well worth the visit. If you are going by train you're in luck as the train stops there but you probably won't have time to visit a two up game unless you've planned a stop over. There is a lot to see in Kalgoorlie with its grandiose buildings, open cut gold mines and the old brothels, but the main attraction - to my mind - is one of the very few legal two up schools in Australia.

Australia is well known for its freedom. You can walk almost anywhere, you can openly criticise our politicians, you can buy a drink around the clock but don't set up a two up game or the law will descend upon you - unless of course you own a casino. This is all very strange, particularly as this game was a national betting game in the gold-rush days as well as being intrinsically linked to the ANZAC tradition. It is probably the reason they got rid of the pennies. Imagine trying to play two up with one-cent coins. No one would be able to see which side of the coin faced up. That reminds me, I haven't explained the game yet.

Ok back to it, but just one more slight digression first. In a place such as Kalgoorlie, with its magnificent historical buildings built at the peak of the gold rush you can just imagine the setting for this historic game. Wrong. The game is held out of town on a dusty road. At least it was when I was there. I imagine it is often a very muddy track after it rains but that's of little importance. At the end of the track there is a run down, ramshackle, conglomeration of corrugated iron - you know, that wrinkly iron much favoured as a building material years ago and now making a comeback. Inside there is a ring with, if I remember correctly, sawdust or some similar material covering it, or it may have been dust, anyway it doesn't really matter. Around the ring there are some battered seats and benches and on these sit a mixture of respectable and unsavoury characters, locals and visitors.

The game's about to start.

But I still haven't told you the rules. I told you earlier that this is a complex game and by now you'll no doubt be in agreement, as it's taken me all this time and I still haven't got past the fact that it is held in a strange location and involves pennies......which the Government replaced with tiny coins of no use whatsoever and which should never have happened.

The rules are relatively simple. On each coin there is a heads side (usually the Queen or even the King of England and the Commonwealth) and a tails side. For many years the coins had a kangaroo with a long tail and hence the term - tails.

The coins are placed on a board - which has a name that alludes me for the moment - and the Spinner then throws the coins up in the air making sure they both spin a number of times, otherwise it's deemed a no throw. If both coins fall with the heads facing upwards, the call is heads. If both coins fall with the tails facing up the call is tails - strangely enough. This is of vital importance to remember because it is the basis of what the game is all about. That's what you bet on. You bet whether the next fall of the coins will be heads or tails. If it is one of each the coins are re-thrown.

Now this probably doesn't sound overly exciting. Sort of like betting on a race between two snails, which, by the way, is also a favourite amongst punting Australians. But strangely enough, it is and the primary reason is the crowd involvement. There is an official bet collector who always bets on heads. If you want to bet on tails you hand him your money and he holds it until after the spin. If you win he gives you your money back plus the same amount again less a commission. He may collect dozens of bets and doesn't write anything down but be assured, he remembers who bet what, so don't try and bluff him. While this is going on, anyone can yell out "twenty dollars tails" and you can then cover their bet or part of it by handing them the money. If you win you go and collect your winnings - that is, if you can find the money holder or remember who they were. Most people are honest but it can be a bit confusing if there are big crowds. If you lose, they keep the money.

Another side feature of two up is that you can be the Spinner. Someone from the crowd is selected and they spin until they spin two tails, then it is given to someone else.

So, there it is, two up in Kalgoorlie. It is worth the trip just to take part in this historic, uniquely Australian game. It is worth the trip to just watch the antics of the Spinners and the crowd. It is worth the trip just to see a penny which our Government...

That's enough, I'm off to Kalgoorlie.

Check out John's visit to the Charleville Camel, Donkey and Yabbie Race Festival

by John Dodson

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