PROPOSED TAX ON BETTING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 35, 10 February 1926, Page 9

PROPOSED TAX ON BETTING

SUPPORT FOR THE PARI-MUTUEL

THE TOTALIBATOR AND THE

BOOKMAKER.

(From Oyr Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 24th December. Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) H. A. Lane gives his view about the suggested tax on betting. He considers it certainly necessary that steps should now be taken by the Government to check this mania for betting which has got such a strong hold of people of all ■classes in this country. ■■ ■.-■ ■• During Treeent years (he writes in "The Morning Post") thousands of women, who before the war would never have thought of this mode of gambling, flow bet almost daily on horse races. Among the poorer classes and the unemployed this vice of betting is now the most important interest of the day. The morning is spent in getting tips and making bets, and the evening in finding out "what's won." This state of things has produced a host of bookmakers who batten on the foolishness and ignorance of this large population of backers. This vice has now reached such large dimensions that it is now a national curse, which is undermining the moral of all classes. The Government has now an opportunity not only to reduce considerably vhe amount of betting, but at the same time to tax betting and bring a substantial sum each month into the Treasury. It would no doubt be a good thing for the nation to stop all betting, but this is aiming at the impossible. Let us follow the example set in other countries, and have "the Parimutuol" or "totalisator" on all racecourses, and do away with all bookmakers cf every kind. All other betting should be illegal.' 1 MORE BOOKMAKERS THAN. EVER. A reply comes from one signing himself "New Zealand." As a New Zealan'der who has been concerned in racing in the Dominion for thirty years as owner and breeder, he "can only say that Colonel Lane's belief that the introduction of the totalisator (or "tote" as we call it) kills the bookmaker is 1 entirely erroneous. Some years ago, as a steward of a metropolitan club, I had, with others, seriously to consider the question, and say to-day emphatically that the monopoly of totalisator betting in New Zealand has not lessened the number of bookmakers who still operate off the courses. In fact, there, are more bookmakers in New Zealand to-day than there ever were in any previous year, and none are allowed on the courses. The reason for the increased number is simple.

"In the old days a bookmaker to be successful needed education and ability before he could ply his trade or profession successfully. To-day no mental arithmetic or abstruse calculations are required to "lay^he odds," for the tote does all that work. The totalisator fixes the price every time. The dividends paid by'the tote are the prices paid by the bookmakers off the course, with this exception, that the bookmaker in our country limits his liability to £7 10s for £1 invested on the winner, and he limits his liability to £2 10s for £1 for the second horse. The bookmaker pays on the first and second horse as the tote does, with, however, in the bookmaker's case, tho above limitation. "You will, therefore, see it does not require a genius, for such operations. If a bookmaker holds a bigger sum on a favourite than he cares to 'stand,' he generally contrives by code to wire to a friend who can place a large part of tho parcel on the horse in question on the totalisator, and in this way bath reduce the dividend and at the same time reduce the amount of his liability on the balance of the parcel he holds. Though bookmaking. is illegal, juries 1 will not convict except in very.special cases." WEAK ADMINISTRATION OF THE LAW. To-day Colonel Lane writes that lie fails to see that "New Zealand" proves his statement. "At tho end of his letter ho writes: 'Though bookmaking is illegal, juries will not convict except in very special cases.' This is not the fault of tho system of limiting betting to the totalisator, but the fault of the weak administration of this law in New Zealand, if the wording of this law really makes bookmakers illegal. I have had experience of racing in several countries, and have trained and ridden wy own horses. I was particularly struck by the great profits made by the totalizator in France, the Argentine, and Egypt, in which countries thcro aro no bookmakers.'i ~^- ~