EVIL OF GAMBLING

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 11

EVIL OF GAMBLING

CANON'S INDICTMENT

£400,000,000 IN BETS

BOOKMAKERS; PROFITS

' (From "The, Post's" Representative.) , LONDON, 22nd November. Canon Peter Green, of Manchester, made a vigorous attack on gambling at the Durham Diocesan. Conference. "I have tried gambling with an imaginary 'bob,'" said Canon Green, "and following the favourites in ante-post betti'jig is most fatal, following a jockey beinj;- slightly less so. I have followed an espert and sometimes my own intelligence, and there is not sixpence of difference in the year. The experts do hot know anything, and nobody knows it better than they do." Canon Green estimates that bookmakers in this country handle about £400,000,000" every year, and retain 5s out of every 7s. He contended that gambling lowered the output of wealth by at least 20 per cent., through wasted time and friction during working hours. "How many small shopkeepers go ■bankrupt in the; course of a year because the money that should come to them has gone to a bookmaker?" he continued. . "There are 100,000 cases of embezzlement in a year directly due to gambling, and it is the cause of tho corruption, of all decent sport." DISGUST FOE HONEST WORK. . Canon Green attacked the "terrible scandal of dog racing," which, he said, had brought the racecourse to the back doors of hundreds of thousands of wxxrk-ing-class homes. "Dog-racing tracks are attended by young women with babies in arms, and children subscribe a penny each to make up a shilling i.i order to haye a bet," he declared. ' . He alleged that swindling practices were in fore© on some tracks, and that after a race money was thrown into the tote by the tote authorities to lower the amount to be divided. "The whole thing is honeycombed with fraud," he asserted. ' Regarding the Irish sweep, Canon Green alleged that only Is lOd out of every 10s ticket went to the hospitals, and said that a newspaper devoting two pages on two days to publishing the drawers of winning tickets would have to devote the same space for four and a half to pnblish the losers. The Bishop of Durham, after a lengthy debate, said the prevalence of betting in one form or another was having the effect of disordering the public imagination and disgusting the public with honest work. A resolution was passed declaring "that the churches, as a contribution to stemming the evil of gambling, should eliminate all forms of gambling, sweepstakes, lotteries, and raffles from its method of raising money for church purposes." . ' ' BISHOP'S QUESTIONS. A call to church-people to face the problems of gambling, betting, aqd tote clubs was made on Sunday by the Bishop of Carlisle. Dr. Williams, preaching in Carlisle Cathedral, asked his congregation as Christians: — ' "Do you really want a tote club to be started in every town?" "Do you really want a greyhound track in most quarters ? " "Is there any real doubt at all that, supposingl you have your greyhound track, it is a bad thing for young people to watch older people staking money that they cannot afford to lose, in order that they may have a remote chance of obtaining more money—that, they have not earned? "If there is any doubt on matters like this, are wu not to do something about it?" ' '■ If Christians were doing their duty, h> continued, it would not be possible for bookmakers to come and introduce betting at annual sports. "It would not be possible for a football club I>o be led to a desire to establish a greyhound track in order to add to its receipts; nor would it be possible, if: we were really anxious to help our hospitals, for the wasteful method of draws to be established. If people sent to the hospital less than half tho sum they give for a hospital sweep ticket, that hospital would be getting twice a3«much as it is getting at present from the proceeds of the draw."