Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) a bookmaker.

1861		Bell’s Life in London 27 Jan. 4/2: Virgilius, Kilims, and Forester, names already familiar to the metallicians, and which [...] will often be pencilled down.
1870		Sportsman (London) 12 Feb. 5/5: A well-known Yorkshire metallician called out ‘I’ll bet you 50l. to nothing, John’.
1881		Herald (Melbourne) 21 May 2/6: They Say [...] That the man who would book a double [...] should say to the metallician who books his bet, ‘Write me down an ass’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Sept. 5/3: ‘Better get shorn,’ remarked one rising metallician: ‘I’ll buy the fleece.’ ‘Thanks,’ replied the meek young man; ‘when I want to be fleeced this is the shed I will come to.’ And as he passed on the books thought that they had not ‘skinned the lamb’ that time.
1888		Yorks. Herald 16 May 8/1: Language more terse than polute rolled out of the metallician.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 14 June 1/3: Our friendly metallician retired into a corner of the refreshment room and wept bitterly.
1898		E.S. Mott Mingled Yarn 315: [He] entrusted an obliging and leathern-lunged ‘metallician’ with half a sovereign.
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 14 Nov. 1/2: A jockey [...] is as honest as most of the metallicians.
1913		E. Spencer Cakes & Ale 100: A well-known magnate of the betting ring [...] hunts up the chef, and sheds upon him a ‘fiver’ or a ‘tenner’ [...] And that metallician and his party are not likely to starve.
1915		A.B. Paterson Saltbush Bill, J.P. [book] The Rabbi so elderly, grave, and patrician, / Had been in his hot youth a bold metallician.