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Leisure

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gambling | opium smoking | picnics | music | sport | social visits

Gambling

Gambling in the form of games like fan tan, pak a pu, and mah jong was a common pastime in the largely all male Chinese communities across regional New South Wales in the mid to late nineteenth century. It was an activity which attracted negative criticism and derogatory comments from white Australians including government enquiries into the extent and nature of Chinese gambling activities. The Chinese quarters in towns in regional areas were seen as places where gambling lured and destroyed European Australians. Ironically, these sentiments were expressed from within a white Australian tradition which itself had a long history of gambling.

Chinese coins found at different locations in regional New South Wales. (Albury Regional Museum, McCrossins Mill at Uralla, and a Private collection)

Chinese coins are often found in places where there were overseas Chinese settlements during the nineteenth century. It is most likely that they were used as counters in gambling.

In China, once coins were minted they stayed in circulation indefinitely. This helps to explain why the age of coins found in Australia can be much older than any known Chinese presence in the country. It also explains why coins of quite different ages can be found in or near the one site. Most coins found in overseas sites were made sometime during the Manchu or Qing Dynasty (AD1644-1911).

The obverse side has four Chinese characters - two give the names of the emperor during whose reign the coin was made; the remaining two establish that the coin was a legal form of currency in China. On the reverse side of the coin, there are usually two characters which give the name of the mint.

Mah jong set. (Albury Regional Museum).

The Chinese characters on the lid are translated (in Cantonese) as 'Wo Ping'. As Doris Yau-Chong Jones explained, this is an expression used when you win the game.

Mah jong was a popular game for Chinese residents in regional New South Wales and beyond. Growing up in north Queensland in the 1920s and 1930s, a Chinese-Australian living in northern New South Wales recalled:

I can remember distinctly my father playing mah jong a lot ... All the Chinese used to play mah jong all weekend. And wherever they'd go, they'd have the cook cooking all the meals and they'd just sit down and play mah jong from morning till night and then get up next morning and play again... There was always food on the table. I can remember the rattle of the ivories all the time. You know, clang, clang...

Harry Fay and Jack Marquart at the Inverell racecourse, late 1950s. (Private collection)

Gambling has a long history in Australia. Among its early forms was horse racing. It was a sport and pastime embraced by a number of Chinese-Australians. Harry Fay, owner of the Hong Yuen store in Inverell, for example, was president of the Inverell Jockey Club for 18 years. He was also a horse owner, bought stables and provided accommodation for a number of visiting jockeys.