Julius Totalisator

George Julius (later Sir George Julius) invented the world’s first automatic totalisator in Australia in 1913.

His original invention, a purely mechanical machine was installed in Ellerslie, Auckland, New Zealand in 1913. The second was installed in Gloucester Park, Perth in 1916, and the third in Eagle Farm, Brisbane in 1917.

Julius founded the Australian company, Automatic Totalisator Ltd in 1917 to develop and export these totalisators.

The present Eagle Farm Electromechanical Julius Tote, a descendant of the original invention, was installed in 1948. By 1970, with few exceptions, every major racing centre in the world, in 29 countries, used totalisators manufactured by this Australian company. The Julius Totalisator is an electromechanical machine which allows the simultaneous receiving of myriad numbers of win and place bets from multiple points on the racecourse, records the bets, displays win and place odds for each runner as betting proceeds and issues a ticket for each bet.

Loading map...

{"minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"mappingservice":"leaflet","width":"100%","height":"350px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"zoom":12,"defzoom":14,"layers":["OpenStreetMap"],"image layers":[],"overlays":[],"resizable":false,"fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":true,"cluster":false,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clustermaxradius":80,"clusterspiderfy":true,"geojson":"","clicktarget":"","imageLayers":[],"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":-27.429768004192233,"lon":153.06550418254653,"icon":""}],"imageoverlays":null}

Engineering Heritage Recognition Program

Marker Type	Engineering Heritage International Marker (EHIM)
Award Date	26 October 2015
Heritage Significance
Nomination Document	Available here.
Ceremony Booklet Ceremony Report	Available here.
Plaque/Interpretation Panel Image	Available here.