DRASTIC ACTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 102, 27 October 1938, Page 5

DRASTIC ACTION

OFF-THE-COURSE BETTING

SYDNEY MAKES WAY HARD

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, October 14.

The amendments of the Gaming and Betting Act, to prevent "off-the-course" betting, have been a major news subject here since they were put into force last week.

An important decision was made this week by the seven metropolitan proprietary clubs; that is, all the clubs outside the non-proprietary Australian Jockey Club who conduct Sydney's racing. These clubs nave always been opposed to starting-price betting, which, they claim, has been solely responsible for the falling-off of racing here. The clubs have always frowned on persons associated with racing who have indulged in starting-price betting, but have taken no action against such persons. Now, however, the clubs have decided to make the new Act more effective by using their powers of suspension, disqualification, or fines against owners, trainers, bookmakers, bookmakers' clerks, or other registered persons who indulge in starting-price betting. The police say that, judging by the five race meetings held since the new Act became operative, starting-price betting has decreased by 80 per cent. Cash betting in hotels, clubs, billiard saloons, and other places has been practically eliminated. Credit betting, by means of telephones, still proceeds, but has been made harder, and both backers and bookmakers are finding difficulties, one of which is that fluctuations in the betting market, 'given to them before the race, are no longer available to them. Various means are still being used in attempts to get this information to the bookmakers. "Tick-tacking" (the use of manual signals from the course to an outside agent) is one, but police and clubs have combined in efforts to stop this and it is only a matter of time before the expert signallers become known and are caught. Agents inside the course leave after each race and telephone their principals. Paper containing the betting prices is wrapbed round a stone and thrown over the fence to a waiting confederate, or pulled through an aperture in the fence. By these and other means, betting agents are temporarily cheating the provision of the Act prohibiting the dissemination of betting odds until after the last race. This provision will need continual policing, but it is only a matter of time before all the subterfuges become known and the means of leakages are blocked.

Cash operators who find it impracticable to conduct their business by telephone are seeking other methods of carrying on. Some insist on all bets being handed in before 11.30 a.m. on a race day. Others are encouraging "family groups" or "friendly groups," one member of which acts as agent. Groups of six or eight people meet in a private house on race afternoons, the agents collects the bets, and telephones them through in a block to the principal. Othex-s have instituted a "memory system." Youths are employed to call on clients in given block areas, and to memorise bets, thus obviating the necessity of passing betting slips. Many small businesses, carried on as "blinds" for cash starting-price business, will have to close down.