SIR ABE BAILEY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 171, 6 August 1937, Page 3

SIR ABE BAILEY

Air Mail.)

The World's Greatest Gambler COLOURFUL CAREER

(Own Correspondent — By

LONDON, July 11. _ The world's greatest gambler, multimillionaire Sir Abe Bailey, is playing out the biggest gamble of his career — with his own life as the stake. He lies in hjs Mayfair home seriously lli. To save fatal complications that might follow a elot in a leg artery, he has had a leg amputated. The result of the gamble will not be known for some days. But the odds are on Sir Abe Bailey. "All my life I've been a gambler." Many times Sir Abe has said that. And shown it, too. He started at nineteen in Cape Town, where his father was a merchant. Young Abe wanted to buy some wool cheap. His father turned the proposal down. Without saying anything, Abe fixed up a credit with the local bank manager, bought huge quantities of wool, and sold it to London dealers. That deal earner him £31,000. Abe Bailey saw hardly anything of it. His father' s business pbsorbed ^ all. At twenty, Abe went to the new goldfields on the Band. He worked as a handyman and as a roadmaker. He tried digging for gold, but Jpiew nothing about it, and was reduced to 14/-. So he painted a rough sigu : "Abe Bailey, Claims Broker," and waited tor people to eome and negotiate the sale and purchase of claims tlirough him. They came. ,He made £10,000 in a few months, then lost the lot buying claims of his own: Penniless, he sat one day on a liotel doorstep when somebody asked hira if tio could play cricket. "Yes," lie replied promptly, and'found liiinself in a team to play Natal. An entliusiastic supporter oifered him £5 for every twenty runs he made. He made 40, out of 141. When his side took the field Abe was put on to bowl. Before doing to he made* a number of bets on the result. He bowled like a demon, look 8 wickets for 17 runs, the other side were out i'or 140, and he collected £80 in debts. Wildly entliusiastic diggers collected £53 on the field. Ke jvent off with £143. He also found no difficulty in raising £4,000 to start new dealings in the goldfields. Since then he has never been poor, though he has won and lost thousands at a time. He has probably won more on a singJe race than any living man. In 1902fhe backed his horse, Lovematch —and it won — for £64,000. When, a few months ago, he won a couple of thousands on the Combridgeshire, he' commented; "It helps to keep the wolf from the door." Sir Abe was sentenced to two years in gaol after the Jameson Baid in Pretoria, The sentence was reduced to a fine, and he promptly went round to visit four frienda who were under sen- ,

tence of death. "You'll be out on Friday," he told them, "Twenty to one we're not," declared one. "Taken in fives," retorted Bailey — and he won £100. Sir Abe keeps racing-stables in England and Africa. In 1928 he sold his English horses — but couldn't keep out of the game for long, and bought more nest year. The liouse in which he now lies is historic. It was there, with himself as host, that strike-leaders met the Cabiuet in 1926 and settled the General Strike. Sir Abe Bailey's wealth is reckoned to be at least £10,X)0,000. In 1930 his income from SouthAfrica alone was (27.8S8,