Housie ‘skulduggery’ to be ‘stamped out’

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 26

Housie ‘skulduggery’ to be ‘stamped out’

PA Wellington The Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Tapsell, says the “skulduggery” practised by some housie organisers has to stop.

Mr Tapsell told a group of about 80 lower North Island housie organisers at the Pipitea marae in Wellington that the proposed Housie Regulations, 1984, would stamp out these practices.

Housie, a game of chance, was played in the last century purely for social contact with no thought of using it to provide money but the game had grown over the years with the result that today in many areas it was big business, Mr Tapsell said. Housie organisers’ “skulduggery” in some areas had prompted the new regulations. Mr Tapsell told the

organisers of one example of a family running five different housie groups for five supposed charities as a means of “ripping off” the public. The housie caller would memorise a set of numbers and the card with those numbers would be planted in the housie audience with a family friend. “They were taking about $BO,OOO from each housie group a year,” Mr Tapsell said. The proposed changes would stop these practices as they were clear, fair and enforceable. “In the past a blind eye was turned to some practices but that won’t be done now. We will make it as easy as possible but there will be no mercy for those who break the law,” Mr Tapsell said. Housie games were virtually impossible to police

under the present regulations but the proposed new regulations would be able to be policed.

The proposed regulations allowed for a game of housie to include a line prize and a house prize. They also defined the roles of a caller and organiser and a housie session and allowed the use of a random selection device in a game of housie. The regulations would allow only 50 games in a session of housie with only two sessions a day and a break of two hours between the sessions.

A separate card would be used for each game rather than a player buying one card for the entire session. Each card would have a common serial number and be numbered consecutively for auditing and inspection.