The return half of a complimentary King's Cross-Newmarket ticket for the Racecourse Betting Control Board. Does anybody know what this might be?
26th March 2014: I have struggled to makes sense of conflicting information on this one, with thanks to David Wilkins. One school of thought has it that the RBCB was set up to monitor attendances at race meetings, and was then tasked by the Government in 1928 to set up reliable, govt supervised betting, nicknamed "the tote" (after Totalisator). Another source states that the RBCB did not exist until the gov't created it as part of setting up the tote. Yet another source declares that the tote did not exist until 1961! I have yet to establish exactly where the truth lies.
One thing I can add with some confidence is that complimentary tickets for RBCB officials used to be issued by the railway. Racing reporters were granted the same privilege. This is the return half of a ticket from London.
