An Australian website loudly proclaims the Totalisator to be an Australian achievement. However the invention of the automatic tote was actually a New Zealand invention being perfected by George Julius (later to be Sir George, knighted for his services to technology) who delivered the automatic totalisator to the world in 1908. He offered it to the Auckland Racing Club who agreed to have a system installed. The purpose constructed building had thirty selling windows and inside was what looked like a giant tangle of piano wires, pulleys, sprockets and cast iron boxes.
The giant machine operated for the first time at the Ellerslie meeting in 1913 with the printer at each window producing a ticket for each bet and mechanically adding to the total tally with the numbers being posted on the front of the tote for all to see.
Interestingly George was not a race goer himself and had actually designed the tote as an automatic vote counter for election time. However both New Zealand and Australian governments who preferred to count the votes by hand turned his invention down.
