Pubs pack out as Two-Up delivers bumper Anzac Day trade
Australian pubs recorded their busiest trading day of the year on Anzac Day, with queues stretching hundreds of metres outside venues as the Two-Up coin-toss drew record crowds across the country.
The surge was supercharged by the holiday falling on a Saturday, with NSW, the ACT and Western Australia all observing a Monday public holiday — turning the occasion into a 72-hour drinking and gaming weekend that operators say they have never seen matched.
In Sydney, the Bondi Lines crowd-tracking app recorded wait times exceeding two hours at venues including The Glenmore Hotel, while The London in Paddington shut down an entire street to manage the overflow.
Two-up, which was a World War I pastime popular among Australian and New Zealand soldiers, remains illegal outside Anzac Day, when licensed venues are permitted to run the game for up to six hours. Victoria is the only exception, allowing RSL clubs to host games in the seven days prior.
Operators say younger Australians have embraced the tradition in growing numbers since COVID-19, and the commercial returns are now hard to ignore.
Billionaire hotelier Arthur Laundy, whose group runs around 40 NSW venues, said the queue outside his Penrith pub stretched roughly 200 metres on Saturday.
"It is a big day, and we cater heavily for those people who want to have a game of two-up," he told the Australian Financial Review. "Overall, I think it probably would be the busiest [day of the year]."
The scene was replicated across Sydney. At the Harbord Hotel in Freshwater, Epochal Hotels' Glenn Piper said entry waits hit 45 minutes by 11am, tightening to one-in-one-out by 1pm.
"Anzac Day is important to all of Freshwater, and has been for a long time," he told the AFR. "We always carry on the tradition, and it remains the biggest day of the year for Harbord Hotel."
At the Oatley Hotel in Sydney's south, manager Lyn Humphreys said the day now rivals Christmas for revenue, with a line running hundreds deep well into the evening.
"We had a full house by about one or two o'clock with a line out the front that was hundreds [of people] long until about seven or eight o'clock at night," she told the AFR. "It's one of those days that's become part of the calendar as you've got your venue where you go to, and that's what you do every year."
Similar scenes were reported in Melbourne, where queues formed before midday at inner-city venues including the Corner Hotel in Richmond.
Australian Hotels Association chief executive Stephen Ferguson said the results reflected something deeper than a one-day spike.
"Business-wise, it's very healthy, and that's just driven by people wanting to be together on such a special day," he told the AFR. "I think they see having a beer and playing two-up as part of the great Aussie tradition of the Anzacs."
Jonathan Jackson, 28th April 2026
