Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) the Totalizator.

1929		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 8 Jan. 4/1-2: For sheer cold-blooded butchery of public money, commend us to the totalisators. The latest and most glaring example occurred at Ascot last Saturday, when patrons of the giddy goat were diddled out of 197 ten bobs when Nonsense was declared a non-starter by the stipendiary stewards.
1934		Narromine News (NSW) 15 June 9/5: [from Sydney Truth] BANG! WENT £76. A Depar Tote-Backer Who Wasn’t [...] He had invested £40 straight out on Depar at 33/1, and when the chesnut finished second he felt that his eight tickets on the ‘giddy-goat’ would more than return his straight out investments.
1940		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 8 Feb. 1/1: It was a break for the tote backers of Spear Arrow and a nasty body blow for those who supported Numeral on the ‘giddy goat’.
1954		Truth (Sydney) 25 Apr. 18/5: Ace Pilot returned Reg a total of £28 0s 3d for each five bob each way on the giddy-goat.
1960		J. Franklyn Dict. of Rhy. Sl.
1972		Dodson & Saczek Dict. of Cockney Rhy. Sl.
2002		Pete’s Aussie Sl. Home Page 🌐 giddy goat: the tote, the totalisator .
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 74: The ‘tote’, which is short for the ‘totalisator’, which is colloquially known as ‘the machine’, [...] the ‘giddy goat’, or the ‘nanny goat’.