\u201cA fella said to me one time that if you\u2019re able to do it, gambling is basically money without work. If you\u2019re good enough at it, if you get it right, you can get something tangible. You can be like: \u2018I bought that car and I didn\u2019t work at all for it. I got it because I was good at picking horses.\u2019 There\u2019s an element of satisfaction in that. <\/p>\n
\u201cI like gambling. I love it. I would describe what I have as a controlled addiction. I get a satisfaction out of it. Not many people can do it. There is an element of achievement in it for me \u2013 I have been able to raise my family out of it. I suppose I was never one for the security of a nine-to-five job. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can appreciate people that work hard for a living and all that. It\u2019s not the way I wanted to play my life, but I can very much appreciate that. And I respect other people that have good jobs and bad jobs and all kinds of jobs, people who do stuff I\u2019d hate to have to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I look at it is you have to have one of two things \u2013 you either have to have job satisfaction or huge money to counteract the lack of job satisfaction. I nearly always get job satisfaction. The money is in the lap of the gods sometimes, whether I actually make the money or not. But I have great job satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
The racing world is small and gossipy and everybody talks about everybody, not always in the kindest of terms. But it might be easier to find the winner of one of the handicaps at Cheltenham next week than to find someone who\u2019ll cut the back off Johnny Dineen. His appearances on the Upping The Ante YouTube show have made him into an unlikely star in racing media and he\u2019s a mainstay of the preview night circuit. <\/p>\n
Ask around as to why he\u2019s so popular and the same lines keep coming back at you. He\u2019s genuine, obliging, no bullshit, an open book. Plenty of people talk their gambling up and even more talk it down \u2013 Dineen does neither. A good day is a good day and a bad day is a bad day. No point bluffing either way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a time,\u201d he says, \u201cwhen a fella who could actually make money as a punter, he was seen as half a hero. But nowadays he\u2019s almost a pariah. If you go around saying you\u2019re gambling for a living, it\u2019s not a million miles away from being a drunk driver or a drug dealer in some people\u2019s eyes. It\u2019s a dark, seedy world that they see.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor someone from the outside world looking in, most people would say: \u2018Jesus, I don\u2019t fancy that life.\u2019 But it\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever done and it\u2019s all I\u2019m ever going to do. I couldn\u2019t ever see myself doing anything else now at this stage. I wouldn\u2019t mind retiring from it at the same time. And if I did retire, I\u2019d never have a bet again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dineen grew up in Youghal, the son of two teachers. In the 1980s, the dog track in the town was a social hub and families built their weekends around it. His dad often clerked for one of the bookies on the rail on a Friday night, writing down the bets as they came in and keeping track of potential liabilities from race to race. Eventually, he got tired of it and got his young lad to fill in for him. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could maybe clerk for a fella at Youghal dogs on a Friday night, then do the same at Cork dogs on a Saturday night and maybe a point-to-point of a Sunday. And between the three days, you could have 80 quid on a Sunday night. And you only 14 years of age. My parents would be giving us \u00a32 for the week going to school. So if you had your 80 quid, that\u2019s a fortune.\u201d <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been his life, in one form or another, pretty much ever since. After a short stint in UCC \u2013 and an even shorter one in London living with his brother \u2013 he clerked for a bookmaker back in Cork for a few years before striking out on his own. He was a bookie for the guts of two decades and the reason he can be a punter now is that he had the good fortune to be in the game when the game was good. <\/p>\n
There was endless money sloshing around the place during the Celtic Tiger and he was expert enough at his trade to make sure it regularly found a home in his satchel. Those were the halcyon days and if he did one thing right in his life, it was recognising them for what they were and acting accordingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cA huge thing for me is to take money off the table when you win,\u201d Dineen says. \u201cIf you have a stack of money that high [holds his hand at forehead-height], you\u2019ll bet like it\u2019s that high. You bet away and if the stack goes down, you start saying to yourself: \u2018Sure I\u2019ve loads of money, I can bet away here and it doesn\u2019t matter a damn.\u2019 So to me, the secret is keeping the stack at a lower level and always be hungry to build it up. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause if you have it lying around the place, you\u2019ll end up betting it. If you have 100 grand available to you, you\u2019ll start betting in 15 grands and 20 grands. But if you have 10 to 15 grand on hand, you\u2019ll bet in twos and threes. There\u2019s no need to be betting 15, 20 grand a bet. <\/p>\n
![\"It's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7VIMTZUUPFBN3FM7CUSK7MM7EI.jpg\")
It’s a good idea to take your money off the table when you win, says Johnny Dineen. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n
\u201cThe higher you go in the stakes, the more dangerous your opponent is going to be. You\u2019ll get found out. So it was crucial in all those good times to take money and put it into something. I have some bits of property that I put it into and I never had a mortgage on any of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the crash came and money got tight all over, it became harder and harder to make a living as a small bookmaker. One losing year turned into two and he couldn\u2019t risk it becoming three. He had made his money, he had taken chunks of it off the table and he wasn\u2019t in hock to anyone. Time to get out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never got into debt anywhere. I was lucky enough that I was able to walk away from being a bookie and didn\u2019t owe anyone, which is massive. That was the big thing for me when I started doing Upping The Ante. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a completely different thing for me, something I\u2019d never done in my life. But I felt I could chance it because at least I knew I\u2019d be doing it and there\u2019d be no fella watching it and pointing at the screen going: \u2018That bastard owes me money.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a massive thing and it still is a massive thing for me today. That you still have your reputation when it\u2019s not an easy game to keep your reputation intact. You see a rake of fellas getting into financial trouble in our game. But to be doing it for over 30 years, I can actually say it\u2019s the one thing I\u2019m proud of \u2013 that nobody can point at me and say: \u2018Here, he owes me money.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Fundamentally, his life didn\u2019t really change. He was a full-time punter now but his daily bread still came down to separating the winners from the also-rans. Bookmakers gamble more than punters \u2013 at least a punter can take a race off. He knew the game, he knew the people, he knew the pitfalls. Most importantly, he knew himself. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to have a good temperament for it. You have to have a bit of bottle and you have to be able to take the rough with the smooth. There\u2019s no good crying if they lose. But then, you can\u2019t take it too good either. You can\u2019t be a really good loser because it has to hurt at the same time. <\/p>\n
![\"Bookmakers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/HIH3HN4WKFBKLNZXXHLRZO3Z34.jpg\")
Bookmakers at the Galway Racing festival. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n
\u201cDiscipline is a lot in this game. I\u2019m not the best at discipline but you get older and you make the same mistakes and you learn it. My discipline is probably at the best it\u2019s ever been really. But it\u2019s taken 30 years to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
His stakes have come down accordingly. Back in the mid-2000s, Dineen says he was betting five-figure sums on more or less a daily basis. His workaday stake would be a fraction of that now. He bets through intermediaries most of the time but it would rarely be enough to attract too much attention anyway.<\/p>\n
And so he makes a living that is serviceable, without, as he puts it, \u201clooking to win gazillions\u201d. He can bet that way because he built up enough of a cushion in the good times. So if he has a bad year now, it (a) won\u2019t be a catastrophic amount of money and (b) can be offset by selling one of the assets he has gathered up over the years.<\/p>\n