An interesting photograph, taken in the early 1900s, of Epsom Racecourse. The men taking bets (in cash, of course) had hand-written sign-boards showing the odds for each horse. There were no mobile phones, calculators or computers with complex algorithms, so making the calculations required to set those odds and stay ahead of the punters was a joint effort with colleagues. They communicated with each other via a unique system of secret, semaphore, hand signals and were known as Tic-Tac men. Very few, if any, continue their art today.

Enjoy this original photograph from our archive. It is low resolution and has a ‘keasbury-gordon.com’ watermark. Our NFT photo-art images are higher resolution (300 dpi) with no watermark. Please subscribe to be notified when Keasbury-Gordon photo-art is offered for sale.