Miller tried his hand on the goldfields and although failing to dig up a fortune, he had been greatly impressed by the way the diggers enjoyed a wager.
Shortly after returning to Melbourne he started Australia's first sweepstakes and the business boomed until the early 1880s when the law decreed that all sweeps were illegal.
An advertisement in the 1887 pamphlet read: "Mr. J.J. Miller Has Books Open and will lay the odds on all the leading races of the current year.
The content of the present day Miller's Guide remains basically the same with results of nearly 300 Group and Listed Australian horse races in 744 pages, whereas originally it was only 80 pages and listed a mere dozen or so races and carried limited information on other sporting codes.
All codes of football, cricket, golf, tennis and many more modern sports also get greater coverage in the today's Miller's Guide.