PULLING THE PUNTER'S LEG.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 226, 23 September 1932, Page 6

PULLING THE PUNTER'S LEG.

At the annual meeting of the Takapuna Jockey Club one of the members said: "It is common knowledge that every Labour member in Parliament is working tooth and Hail to get bookmakers licensed." Now that is not correct, and whatever may be the opinion Of individual members it is only fair and juit to state that the Labour party at present his its mind occupied with questions of a far more momentous and important national character than the disposition of bookmakers,, licensed or otherwise. Although I do not claim to speak with any degree of authority, I understand that the Labour party, as such, is not committed to any particular attitude upon the question at all. However, assuming such to be the case, and in substance true, it is somewhat hard to understand the attitude tajken tip by the Takapuna Jockey. Club and kindred bodies towards the Labour party. There are operating throughout the Dominion several thousand illegal bookmakers, of bot/ii sexes and all ages. I encountered one in the Auckland Public Hospital last winter. Enormous sums of money find their way into th& pockets of these bookmakers and, by fines, into the Consolidated revenue; but not one penny finds its way into the revenues of racing clubs to be devoted to the upkeep of the game that provides the machinery for this traffic, and without which it could not function, Tihc licensing of the bookmaker would divert at least some portion of this tremendous sum into the revenues of the racing clubs Slid bring them some measure of tliat financial relief for which they are loudly clamouring. And the only return those bodies make to the | Labour party for this alleged service is capitious and contemptuous criticism, which can only be stigmatised as gross ingratittKlo. The racing clubs evidently do not want to avail themselves of this kind of relief, and I am personally positive that the bookmakers, especially t-he big wealthy ones, do not to be licensed. We are offered as an alternative process of relief the establishment of the "double" totalisator, tile telegraphing of money for ihvestment on the totalizator, and the publication of dividends in the Press. The first proposal I will dismiss as having no particular influence on the question whatever. The third would only act as a further assistance and a saving of expense to the present illegal bookmaker and punter, hut the second I consider the absurdity de luxe of the entire proposal, and how any sensible body, of men could seriously suggest such & puerility is bevond my comprehension. FRANK MORROW.