Yahoo Lifestyle Aussie two-up tradition mutates as punters cash dries up: 'Never seen so many $5 notes'
While thousands turned up to the pub to participate in the well-loved Anzac Day tradition there was an interesting change to pub-goers' behaviour.
Thousands of Australians this week reacquainted themselves with an old friend that time has almost forgotten. We're talking about the once ubiquitous but now hard-to-find Automated Teller Machine – aka the ATM.
A trip to the "hole in the wall" to withdraw funds was an almost daily ritual until electronic payments became the preferred mode of transaction. But, for one afternoon each year, cash is again king and ATMs across the land are raided for precious banknotes.
Anzac Day two-up games simply can't function without the folding stuff.
There's no tap and go EFTPOS machines available in the two-up betting ring and credit cards on heads just won't cut it when you’re covering a rival's bet.
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But it appears those who suddenly remembered their PIN and withdrew cash did so at a very conservative rate.
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Two-up "boxers" — the emcee or ringers of the two-up game — report that while interest in the Anzac Day tradition was at an all-time high, yesterday, money did not change hands at the rate it once did.
This year, cost of living pressures bit hard and punters kept close watch on every dollar.
"Come in Spinner" is now more "Come in Spinner and make sure there's enough money left for dinner".
Huge crowds played two-up this year
Matt Scott has been hosting two-up games at Sydney's popular Clovelly Hotel for 17 years.
He's seen crowds grow from 200-300 people up to the 20,000 who passed through the pub's doors on Thursday. He's also noticed a trend in what they're willing to wager.
"The crowds are definitely bigger but the amounts they are betting are down," he told Yahoo Finance.
"The biggest bet I saw yesterday was for $800 but years ago there were a lot more people betting those kinds of amounts," he said.
"You'd have blokes betting in the hundreds all day long. It wasn't that rare to see consistent bets of $500.
"Now you might get one or two bets of that size and then they tend to get out.
"I think you can put it down to cost of living, plus we get a lot of Irish and English at the Cloey and they tend to bet $10 to $20 at a time."
A sea of $5 notes
One punter who attended Forestville RSL's two-up game in Sydney's north told Yahoo Finance: "I haven’t seen so many five-dollar notes in years".
"There was definitely a lot of smaller $5, $10, $20 bets going on this year.
"There was still the odd 'pineapple' ($50) floating around but people seemed to be a little bit more careful with their dough," he said.
"You can win big quickly on two-up but that relies on someone losing big quickly.
"A lot of us are keeping are keeping a close eye on finances so it's no real surprise spending on two-up may be down from what it was."
Aussies just 'carrying less cash'
But Finder's money expert Angus Kidman believes the downtown in two-up turnover can’t all be put down to cost of living anxieties.
"Our levels of stress over finances are actually lower in 2024 than in 2023. In April last year, 79 per cent of us were worried about our financial situation. For April this year, that has dropped to 76 per cent," he said.
"So we wouldn't necessarily expect folks to cut their expenditure on two-up purely on that basis.
"One factor to remember: we're all carrying less cash anyway and that has been an ongoing trend. That means notes for betting on two-up aren't going to be in as many people's wallets."
