Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) small-time; esp. in meat pie bookie, a small-time bookmaker.

1915		A. Wright Sport from Hollowlog Flat 24: Don’t bet with these meat-pie bookies. Dave Doem’ll offer a fair price directly [AND].
1922		A. Wright A Colt from the Country 122: ‘They’re meat-pie bookies, all right’, he exclaimed displaying a bunch of tickets. ‘Had to make four bets of it.’ [GAW4].
1988		C. Galea Slipper 211: Tamarama Boy is a meat pie champ. He has beaten nothing in his two runs and I doubt if he can even run a place [GAW4].
1989		Sun. Tel. (Sydney) 9 July 120: Jockey Darby Munro once called Ajax a ‘meat pie champion’, meaning that he never beat any really top-class horses [GAW4].
1992		R.G. Barratt ‘Tall Tales’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] [A] Queensland hillbilly in an Australian, meat-pie western.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] [A] movie that was virtually just another Australian meat-pie western.