As the solemnity of the dawn service faded, the raucousness of Two-up took over.
At The Dock pub in Kingston, the bets went up as the beer went down. "I'm up 250 bucks," Sophie Immonen said with a grin.
It was the spin that prompted the grin, she reckoned: "It was the best spin I've ever done. Last year was a shemozzle and I got booed."
This year she gave a masterclass in spinning: the gentle pull back of the kip; the hush of the crowd in that moment of tension; and then the launch of the pennies, not too far but just enough to get a spin before the fateful fall to her winning combination.
Then it was the turn of The Canberra Times. I had watched and learnt from the master and, I like to think, spun the pennies pretty well. Gracefully, even.
It's not an easy skill: take the kip down delicately; wait for the crowd to fall silent like Nadal does before a serve: then up with the kip in an elegant flip to launch the coins nicely. Not too showy but not too much modesty, either: a gentle raise of the hand in acknowledgment to the crowd the way the sporting greats do it (Woods, Bradman, Messi).
So the flip was majestic - but, above all, fun. "What I love about Anzac Day is everybody together having a good time," Ms Immonen, of Campbell, said.
Fun with a backdrop of seriousness, Lionel Thomas had come from Newcastle especially for Anzac Day: "Because I'm patriotic."
"I just wanted to do a dawn service in Canberra. It was freezing this morning and now it's like a summer's day," he said in the middle of the Canberra day. "It's gorgeous."
He learnt how to play two-up from his grandfather.
"It's the way we can be a larrikin for a day because of those soldiers who have given us this culture and given us this day," he said.
"Those soldiers would play it in the trenches as a distraction. If we can pass on that respect for them, that's important to me."
About a kilometre away, at the Canberra Services Club, the two-up was being played on a carpet on the gravel at the back.
The atmosphere was not raucous but it was jovial. While the pub in Kingston was crammed with young people, the club in Barton was crowded but not packed. The players were older, often in uniform.
This was a place for men standing ramrod straight as they held their beer in their hands. Some of the older men there said the atmosphere at two-up just wasn't like it was in the old Manuka Club before it burned down in 2011.
Since then, the club's been in a sort of limbo. The saga of whether it will be rebuilt at its old site near the Manuka Oval next to the Leopard tank and Kokoda Memorial continues with no end in sight.
So the mood at the club's current less-than-prominent home among the office blocks in Barton was restrained.
"We used to have two-up in Manuka under a marquee and it would go on all day," said Greg Ranse, who was keeping a tally of the bets.
A slice of the winnings - $175 - went to war widows.
But one sentiment was the same at the Services Club as it was at The Dock.
"It's bringing together people for a common cause," Mr Ranse said.
"It's about the spirit of larrikinism. It's the Australian spirit of just having fun."
The event reminded him of the diggers who needed "to turn dark days into good days to get away from the horrors of war".
