TIPS FOR THE PUNTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 7

TIPS FOR THE PUNTERS.

TIGHTENING UP THE LAW.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Friday.

[ For many years past the clause of 1 the Gaming Act which prohibits the publication of "tips" in connection with races has been practically a dead letter. The newspapers have gone gaily on their way, advising their readers, more or less directly, what to back at forthcoming meetings, and their readers probably have been neither poorer nor richer for the breach of the law. But now the Minister of Internal Affairs has made up his mind that the law is to be enforced, and the local papers were advised to this effect last week. Their attempts still to convey advice to the public without inviting the attention of the police were very amusing yesterday, and perhaps not altogether uninstructive. Their "picks" were disguised as horses that had won at some recent meeting or had done an excellent gallop only the day before. A wink, of course, is as good as a nod to the blind backer, and probably, in this case, it conveyed as much information as a more direct intimation would have done. The authorities are a little dubious, after a day's experience, of their ability to give effect to the Minister's new found zeal, ant! a test case may be necessary to settle the question. The legal mind inclines to the view that such a test would result in the same way as did the attempt to prevent the publication of the order of favouritism in race reports.