Two-up

The game is traditionally played in pubs and clubs throughout Australia on Anzac Day, in part to mark a shared experience with diggers (soldiers).

[citation needed] The design of pre-1939 pennies had the sovereign's head on the obverse (front) and the reverse was totally covered in writing, making the result very easy and quick to see.

The exact origins of two-up are obscure, but it seems to have evolved from cross and pile, a gambling game involving tossing a single coin into the air and wagering on the result.

[citation needed] The predilection of the convicts for this game was noted as early as 1798 by New South Wales's first judge advocate, as well as the lack of skill involved and the large losses.

Gambling games, to which a blind eye was cast, became a regular part of Anzac Day celebrations for returned soldiers, although two-up was illegal at all other times.

As time passed, increasingly elaborate illegal "two-up schools" grew around Australia, to the consternation of authorities [citation needed] but with the backing of corrupt police.

The basic format of the game: The spinner is required to place a bet (usually on heads) before their first throw which must be covered (equaled) by another player.

In the 1921 Australian silent film A Girl of the Bush, directed by Franklyn Barrett, a school for two-up is shown in detail, including the way bets are placed and how the coins are tossed from the kip as the boxer squares up the play area and one of the players calls out "fair go"; the scene ends with a police raid.

In the 1960 film Hell Is a City set in Manchester, England,[8] there is a scene in which robbers use stolen money to join in a gang of local men gathered on a hill behind the town to gamble "the toss".

[9] The 1960 film The Sundowners contains a sequence in which a group of Australian drovers, including Robert Mitchum's character, play a game of two-up, with appropriate bets.

The 1971 film Wake in Fright contains scenes where the main protagonist, a schoolteacher named John Grant, staying in a semi fictional mining town based on Broken Hill for one night, initially makes significant winnings in a game of two-up, before subsequently losing everything again.

In the liner notes it says: Sometimes called "Australia's National Game", two-up is a form of gambling which, though illegal, has long been a favourite pastime.

During the broadcast recording of the 'Tin Symphony' segment of the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games there are two scenes of settlers playing two-up outside a tin home.