Housie organisers and players are upset by new regulations

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 15

Housie organisers and players are upset by new regulations

GARRY ARTHUR finds housie organisers are upset by new regulations imposed on them from above — and that he lost his chance of being in the money himself when “Legs eleven” came out of the bag before “Clickety click.”

“Two dozen, 24; Kelly’s Eye, number one; key of the door, 21...” I was waiting for just one number — “clickety click, 66.” My heart beat faster. Is this what they mean by a little flutter? “Top of the shop, 90,” chanted the caller, pausing only to rattle the numbers in his tin. “Maggie’s Din, number 10; on its own, number five; legs 11 . . . .” “Here!” shouted an excited young woman across the hall. Suddenly the tension eased while the caller checked the winner’s numbers, but the housie players in the Caledonian Hall left their markers on their cards for the moment, just in case she had it wrong.

Sweating on my missing 66 was the closest I came all night to shouting “House!” “You’d better not win or you’ll get hooked,” warned Mrs Helen Neil who was sitting opposite me with her daughter Megan, aged 13, and two lucky charms — a tiny silver rabbit ahd a little silver boy who appeared to be a squatter. j‘Tm not superstitious,” Mrs Neil imisted. Just the same she always brings her lucky charms, she always sits in the same place in the hill with her back to the caller, she niakes sure that one of her four cards has the number 19 on it, and included in her markers (they call them “dibs”) are numerous old Kwell worn by her lucky s. ause Mrs Neil is one of the ones. She has kept a record he 12 years that she has been g housie — at least three a week — and most years is been ahead by about $2OO. ily two years has her book a loss. {Wednesday night at the Caledonian Hall was not one of her g eat housie nights. Mrs Neil did not win a house or even a line, a though she did win $5 in a lucky daw of names put in a hat from tie previous week. And it was a sad night for the Caledonian Society; falling returns had forced them to make this their kst Wednesday night housie meeting. Lyall Simpson, the caller, puts it dbwn mainly to the downturn in tie economy, but also to the regulations which have kept the p ice of a housie card the same syice 1972, and the latest clampdown by Internal Affairs on the nimber of single-line pay-outs which may be made. On Wednesday night he called through the numbers 30 times, which meant each player had 30 chances of winning the $l5 prize with each card. But he was able to

pay out on only eight additional single lines, instead of having a line pay-out on each of the 30 house calls as was done previously. Mr Simpson calculated that the players’ chances of collecting a prize have been reduced by 45 per cent by the department’s recent insistence on the letter of the regulations. Mr Barry Nalder, Internal Affairs’ district officer, disagrees. He says the number of chances is reduced only by eight. At one session, players could have 40 games, four jackpots and eight lines, if the organisers wished, making the maximum of 52 “games” altogether. Players would still pay the same card price, but get more chances to collect smaller prizes. When Mrs Neil warned against winning at the first try, she was speaking from experience. She won the first time she played, and has never looked back. Now she even has her own non-skid dibs, which her husband made for her out. of little discs of rubber. When you have four cards to watch you can’t afford to miss a number because of a slippery dib. The caller goes fairly quickly to get through as many games as possible, and four cards take some watching. Legends in the housie world are people like Ringo, the bookseller, who regularly buys seven cards at a time, and a tyr« at the Hoon Hay Working Men’s Club who plays no fewer than nine cards all at once — the hard way too: side by side instead of in a vertical row. Angry housie players — and organisers — have been asking the department how they are going to get a better return. Mr Nalder (a housie player himself) has been advising them to have more houses at a session. The regulations permit up to 52 games — which includes lines and jackpots — in a session of up to three hours. Mr Nalder says that the rule permitting only eight “lines” will be enforced unless and until the regulations are changed. It might come up again at a departmental meeting in Wellington in July. In the meantime, Mr Roger Beatty, the department’s executive officer in charge of gaming, would be visiting the Canterbury district in

the next fortnight to discuss the rule with meetings of housie organisers. More games would suit Helen Neil just fine. “It’s never enough for us, is it Daphne?” she asked her regular playing companion, Mrs Daphne Campbell, another longtime housie fan. She has been going to the “Cally” every Wednesday night since it began, and also helped with the Labour Party’s housie nights for 13 years. All sorts of organisations run housie sessions to raise funds, including political parties. Only commercial concerns are barred. Social Credit’s housie at the party’s rooms in Sydenham is one of the most popular in town, and it manages to drag them in without recourse to gimmicks and raffles. People enjoy the caller’s line of patter, and they like the atmosphere. It is not unusual in Sydenham for housie players to start the day at the morning session at the Sandridge Hotel, move on to the Club Hotel for the afternoon session, go home for tea, then complete the day with a bit of a flutter at Social Credit’s hall.

Helen Neil says it is the social side of housie which really attracts her. She has a different set of friends at each of the housie sessions she attends, and she still corresponds with housie friends in Wellington. Her lucky streak helps, too. The week before last her wins totalled $142. Housie regulations ensure that two-thirds of the money spent to buy cards goes back to the punters in the form of prizes. The Caledonian Society’s policy has always been to divide this up into as many small prizes as. possible, ensuring that the maximum number of players get something back. But stricter enforcement of the regulations has stopped that. Restrictions have come in because some North Island housie organisers were going too far and bending the rules in an effort to maximise their returns. Housie is very strictly regulated. It is a game of chance under the Gaming and Lotteries Act, and has its own regulations and licence conditions, all of which are evidently designed to keep the level of the game down to a mild social

flutter. Unlike horse-racing, housie pays no tax. Although housie is just the minor league of gambling compared with racing, it has a big following. In Christchurch alone 161 organisations are licensed to run housie, and the addict could play morning, afternoon, and evening six days a week. Total housie turnover in Christchurch is about $7.5 million a year. Most players take two cards at $3 each, and on a typical night the organisers would sell 300 of their 400 cards. They have to decide in advance whether to sell 800 cards at 5c a game, 400 cards at 10c, or 200 cards at 20c a game. They may not charge more — or less. No-one involved may be paid for helping to run housie, so the expenses are little more than advertising and rent — about $7O in all for each session, leaving about $230 profit for whatever specific fundraising purpose the organisation has been licensed to run the game. The Caledonian Society raised $6OOO through housie last year — about enough to pay the rates on its Kilmore Street building. To encourage their patrons to spend a bit more, nearly air housie organisers hold raffles of meat and other prizes as a side flutter. If the housie regulations are broken, the organisers are in danger of losing their annual licence. They must furnish half-yearly returns of income and expenditure to the department. If they are breaking the law, they could all be prosecuted by the police — organisers, players, and landlord. However, no-one has been prosecuted in Christchurch — so far — and licences are rarely revoked. The local office of Internal Affairs prefers persuasion to coercion. A stern letter usually does the trick. Mr Nalder says that if everyone plays the game according to the rules, all organisations should be able to get a fair share of the housie-playing population along to their sessions. But if any bend the rules and offer illegal inducements to attract more players, those that are playing fair will soon complain and the culprits will be in danger of losing their licences on prosecution. “It seems to me,” says Mr Nalder, “that the social aspect of the game, particularly as it concerns the elderly, for whom housie night is often a high point of the week, has been lost sight of by some organisers. “All organisations are entitled to a reasonable return for the efforts put in by those helpers who give up a lot of free time — some should not gain more than their fair share through malpractice.”