BUSINESS ABROAD: King of the Bookies

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Hill's enterprise is one of the largest charge-it businesses in the world. At peak season he employs 3,000 clerks in his main office and two branches (one in Glasgow, the other in the London financial district). Prospective clients call up, name banks or reputable friends as references, then ask Hill's for a weekly credit—anything from 10 to thousands of pounds. (A few wealthy clients have no credit limits.) Once the credit is granted, the player places his bet by phone, telegram or mail. One squad of clerks makes sure the wager was received or postmarked before race time, then other clerks, sitting in the huge horse room, check each bet against the enormous blackboard that carries race results from all over England. The betting week closes Friday night; by Monday morning every client either receives his check for winnings or, more likely, his bill in a plain envelope.

"Lightning Judgment." Hill's takes thousands of bets by word of mouth, some just before race time, but a dispute is almost unknown, even though British law does not recognize gambling debts. Nevertheless, Hill's credit losses run to only 0.5% of the total, a record that a department store might envy.

Occasionally, Bill gets away from his desk and out to the track. A determined horseman himself, he has a 1,500 acre stud farm, raised one horse, Nimbus, that won the Derby in 1949. Bill calls the track his "shop window" and puts on a good display. Togged out in a sharply cut lounge suit, silk shirt and floppy Panama, he joins one of the three representatives who handle his book at such big meets as Ascot, Epsom and Goodwood. While other bookies call their odds "ten to one," Bill goes all out: "I'll lay a thousand to a hundred." Says Bill with considerable pride: "The entire business is based on lightning judgment. Every punter [bettor] is entitled to outsmart his bookmaker if he can, and good luck to him. There's no limit to what you can win, I tell my customers. We British are born gamblers."