BETTING IN ENGLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 19, 22 July 1933, Page 21

BETTING IN ENGLAND

VIEWS ON RECENT REPORT

Tho views of the leading English newspapers_ on the final report of the Royal Commission on Lotteries and Betting (tho principal recommendations of which were published lust week) are widely opposed. Two examples will show this.

Sfiye "The Times"

"It will be seen that the recommendations are on the whole a coherent series of discriminating replies to a series of presented difficulties. They enlarge the law where it ought to be enlarged, and they sweep away a number of irritating and superfluous restrictions hitherto mitigated only by the forbearance of the police. The gain, if their advice is followed, should certainly be a better compliance with the law all round. Their proposals should also tend to facilitate the taxation of betting. The Commission has considered this subject outside its terms of reference, but agrees that taxation 'might prove useful as an instrument of limitation or control,' just as it might save something from a vast amount of uneconomic expenditure.

"Above all the report provides the Government with a wider opportunity. The law of gambling is a maze of statutes, ancient and modern, and of tenuous judicial interpretations, which should now be set in order.

"One immediate consequence of the report will no doubt be to revive the interested clamour for the dog-tote. Public opinion will certainly be adamant, as this report is against the courses receiving any share whatever of betting profits and, no less, against the establishment of the tote upon scores of uninvited urban dog tracks. The dog-racing interest has still to show how these two obstacles are surmountable, even if opinion were ripe for a reversal of the law in their favour."

The "Daily Telegraph," which takes up a very different attitude, says editorially:

"Legislation on the linos of this repo: would be irritating and vulnerable 1

opposition from so many quarters that we cannot imagine ii Government eager to undertake it. If such legislation were attempted the impossibility of making it effective would soon be demonstrated."

In regard to the lotteries the writer says: "We Ciin only conclude that the Commissioner!! havd failed to find any solution for the main problem before them.

. . . A summary of these arbitrary, partial, and inconsistent recommendations is sufficient criticism. The Commission has failed to provide that rationalisation of the lottery laws which was the object of its appointment. AVo cannot expect or desire that its report should have any influence on public policy."