The Press FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1933. The Gaming Laws.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20907, 14 July 1933, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1933. The Gaming Laws.

The president's report to the annual racing clubs conference, printed in " The Press " yesterday, drew attention again to an overdue reform. Parliament's rejection of the last attempt to have bookmakers and betting shops relicensed was rightly welcomed; but the president took the occasion to remind politicians and the public, by inference, that it is futile and stupid to refuse the bookmaker a license and a legal living on one principle and to secure him immunity and prosperity on another. The Racing Conference has tried to persuade successive Parliaments that, if the clubs are to run at a reasonable profit and the Government to be sure of a reasonable revenue, the present legal prohibition of the double totalisator and of betting on the totalisator by telegraph must be abolished; and the same measure would at once cut the ground from under the bookmaker's feet and end that popular tolerance and even sympathy in which he finds his best protection. The public as a whole does not bet with bookmakers because they are generous, or fair, or otherwise deserving men—though it is odd to find them, when charged, from time to time, described by the police as " honest" good fellows; the public bets with them simply because the law prevents it from doing openly and conveniently what it sees no harm in and will not be diverted from. It may be true that, even as things are, the police could, if pressed hard enough and if willing enough, drive bookmaking from the ways of flagrant and flourishing trade into holes and corners. Undoubtedly, as tilings are, public dissent from unreasonable legislation is an obstacle, and the want of sufficiently severe deterrent penalties is another. But there is no need for such desperate exercise of police ingenuity and determination against the grain of public opinion and without the help of a. strongly penal law. If the double totalisator and telegraphic betting were legalised, most bookmakers would go out of business on the morrow and the rest could be chased out of it if the small amount of trouble seemed worth while; and that is why those who so obdurately resist these adjustments of the law to the public's standards and wishes are, ironically enough, the bookmakers' best friends.