#BettingPeople: JOHNNY LIGHTS

#BettingPeople: Johnny Lights was an omnipresent larger than life professional gambler on British racecourses for decades, one of the biggest players, and later, layers on the rails. He’s suffered from ill health for the last 13 years but was keen to tell his fascinating story.

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JOHNNY LIGHTS (part 1 of 5)

Johnny talks about how he inherited the nickname that he’d be known by on racecourses for decades and relates a story which involves a very nice pair of crocodile shows and a racecourse interaction with none other than Barney Curley who said he should swap them for hobnails.

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JOHNNY LIGHTS (part 2 of 5)

Johnny talks about his background in London, his illegal bookie father and a winning court case, selling out of a suitcase on Oxford Street, clerking at the dogs and his love of a short one.

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JOHNNY LIGHTS (part 3 of 5)

Johnny talks about some of the biggest players and lively punters in the betting ring back in the day, remembers his great friend and mentor Leslie Woods who helped him immensely and a request for a commission bet that cost the bookies a nice few quid.

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JOHNNY LIGHTS (part 4 of 5)

Following the ‘hot members’ in the betting ring who ended up following him, losing £180,000 on Micky Fletcher’s pitch thanks to Dettori’s magnificent seven and a funny story about his great friend Gary Wiltshire’s untidy hod causing problems at an airport.

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JOHNNY LIGHTS (part 5 of 5)

Johnny talks about his love of betting, even though his stakes are now 1/100 of what they were in his heyday, he’s very frank about his health issues, even franker about his opinion of Betfair and how he still loves his life.

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JOHNNY LIGHTS #BettingPeople PODCAST