Joe Coral
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Joe Coral (born Joseph Kagarlitski, 11 December 1904[1] – 16 December 1996[2][3]) was a bookmaker and entertainment businessman, most famous for founding Coral bookmakers.
Coral was born as Joseph Kagarlitski in Warsaw,[1] then part of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire in 1904, to a Jewish family.[3] Coral considered himself to be Russian, rather than Polish.[4]
Following the death of this father, his mother brought the family to England in 1912,[4] unable to speak any English. Believing that the surname would damage the chances of the family integrating, his mother chose the name 'Coral' as she was reading a book called The Coral Island at the time.[4]
Coral contracted polio as a child,[5] which left both his arms crippled.[3]
He left school aged 14, and started as an office junior for a lamp manufacturer on Gray's Inn Road, London. He subsequently became a runner for a street bookmaker, which was illegal at the time. Using a float from money he was gifted at his bar mitzvah he started to directly take the bets himself,[4][3] rather than run them to his employer, and was fired.[3]
Early bookmaking
He started his proper bookmaking career as an on-track agent at Harringay Stadium taking bets on greyhound racing and speedway, as well as working at White City Stadium and Clapton Stadium.[4]
Coral came up against organised crime boss Darby Sabini at Harringay but held his ground by holding a gun to Sabini's stomach.[6]
His major breakthrough came after he became the first London bookmaker to take bets on individual courses of the Waterloo Cup,[7] and in 1942 he turned a £5,000 profit, establishing him as a bookmaker of repute.[4]