This is one of several pages relating to the history of the automatic totalizator, its invention in 1913, the inventor George Julius and the Australian company he founded in 1917 which became a monopoly ( later an oligopoly ) in this field. This page describes a shaft adder. This is a history only non commercial page. If you wish to start from the beginning then go to the index .

An Electro Mechanical Shaft Adder circa 1926

The shaft adder in the image is one of many that have been restored and donated to museums and educational institutions. The adder weighs 26 Kg and was part of a win place totalisator system. There was one adder per runner in the race per pool. The complete system for a 24 runner field consisted of 50 adders 24 for the win pool 24 for the place pool and a grand total for win and place pools. The racks were constructed with 25 adders in a row for the win pool backing onto another row of 25 for the place pool. This made quite an impressive sight. The win pool system shown below is more modern than the one to which the displayed shaft adder belonged.

This 2 shaft belt driven drum type adder was hand made by Automatic Totalisators in Sydney circa 1926. It was installed at the Mentone Race Club Victoria where it was used until closure.

Circa 1947 the adder was then used at the Ipswich Amateur Turf Club Queensland in conjunction with the custom made J6 and J7 model ticket issuing machines, until superseded in 1978.

The adder registered either win or place bets on one horse only and could handle 4 units of different values on the rear shaft and 6 on the front shaft. e.g. 1 X 5 Pounds, 3 X 1 Pound, 2 X 10 shillings and 4 X 5 shillings.

The rate of sales, 72 per minute, was governed by variable speed rotary distributors, each with 16 TIMs ( ticket issuing machines ) under its control and all on one particular value bank.
A variable speed rotary distributor (scanner)
Selling on the 10 banks for the win and 10 for the place, or 20 bets registered at the same instant was no problem. Since there were 16 TIMs which sold win or place, this equates to 16 TIMs X 10 bets each X 72 RPM or 11,520 bets per minute.

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In the event of a drive failure such as a belt breaking, all adders were fitted with automatic cut outs to prevent loss of bet registrations. The configuration of the adders on a racetrack were back to back. One row of adders, one adder for each horse for the win pool, backing on to a similar row for the place pool. At the end of each row were the grand total adders with the associated winding gear for raising the vertical lift sliders on every horse adder.

The horizontal component was produced via the large chain sprocket wheel which let its slider out in accordance with the bets on that runner. This produced an angle between the vertical and the hypotenuse which was always related to perfect odds for that horse.

On this angle was a pulley arrangement which drove some cams operating a small motor which in turn powered the large barometer style odds ribbons situated on the face of the tote building.

A barometer style indicator

Note - Neville Mitchell informs me that this indicator was in the paddock at Rosehill Sydney. The building is gone now, it was the main tote building with the machine room in the upstairs area.

For remote locations such as the centre of the racetrack or a loft, odds transmissions were achieved by the use of a variable resistance, mounted at the important angle mentioned and utilising the Wheatstone bridge principles. The remote receiver sensed any out of balance transmitted by the adder unit and drove itself and the odds display until the bridge centre leg potential was once again null and therefore equalling the transmitted odds.

Rising inflation and hence larger values being required, plus the need for exotic betting such as Doubles, Quinellas and Trifectas etc. made this machinery obsolete.

In addition to the shaft adder in the image, larger capacity adders, of 5 shafts for large racetracks, to single shaft adders for smaller applications, along with a highly developed modern miniature unit used in the mobile totalisators which serviced country racetracks for many years, were produced.

The basis of this revolutionary invention was the epicyclic bevel gear train designed by Sir George Julius. Such was the craftsmanship in manufacture that even after all those years of service 1926 - 1978, wear was minimal.

Load a full screen image of a 3 Shaft Adder viewed from the escapement end. This adder had a capacity of up to 240 ticket issuing machines.

• Information has been extracted from Automatic Totalisators company magazines and documents.
• The information on the shaft adder was written by Charles Barton
• Thanks to Ian my 11 year old son (1997) who was a great help with the typing, the html and the images.

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