The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1946. GAMING LAWS.

Evening Star, Issue 25750, 25 March 1946, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1946. GAMING LAWS.

At long last the Government has appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into all phases of the gaming laws with a view to legislation. The complexities which those involve and the ineffectiveness with which, in one outstanding respect, they are adminstered have long been a farce and a scandal. Yet because of those very complexities, and the wide contradiction of views that are felt on the gaming question, making it impossible to please everyone by a system, every Government Has shrunk from the task of attempting to bring order and reason into this confused medley. The Act of 1910, which shut bookmakers off courses and imposed other restrictions oh their calling, was ! supposed to be a deadly blow to them. But the bookmaker continued to flourlish, and in 1920 it was enacted that " the business or occupation of a bookmaker is hereby declared to be unlawful. Every person carrying on such business or occupation commits an offence against this Act, and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of £SOO, or to imprisonment for a term of two years. Every person who makes a bet with a bookmaker . . .is liable on summary conviction to a fine of £IOO, or to imprisonment for a term of six months." The Act has been administered, with fines more often than imprisonment and against bookmakers, generally the smaller ones, much more often than against their accomplices, and the outlaw has continued to thrive like the rabbit, also threatened with extermination. It has been estimated that twice as much money goes through his hands as through the totalisatpr, and on- that money the Government loses revenue except what it collects, paradoxically enough, in income tax. As long ago as December, 1938, the Hon. Mr Parry announced that a Royal Commission under the presidency of a Supreme Court judge would be appointed " early next year," to " investigate the whole of the ramifications of racing in the Dominion, with particular reference to the revision of the Gaming Act." But the Government did not hurry, and then- the war came. In December. 1944, the Minister indicated again the prospect that a gaming commission would be set up " immediately." A House committee had recommended to that effect after considering petitions objecting to a more than ordinary stern sentence on a bookmaker. MrMcKeen described the law as one " totally at variance with public opinion." Tt is obviously a law of social convenience, since no moral difference is discernible in betting by one

[ means or another. Mr McKcen added that he had been informed that the licensing of Bookmakers would benefit tho State funds by one and a-half to two millions annually, and " there was a lot in that." " The people of New Zealand would gamble," said Mi- Carr, when the matter was brought up again last year. There are more anomalies to be considered in connection with the gaming laws, such as the absurd provision which helps bookmakers by prohibiting the publication of dividends —information easily obtained through the illegal channels. Whenever revision comes before the House there will be calls for the most contradictory things—for State lotteries, for the of bookmakers, for the sanction of direct telegraphing to the totalisator, which would be a cramping of their hand, for the double totalisator, and more besides. Tn one sense it is absurd that the Government should refer these matters to a commission to investigate, where most members of the House, representing truly, in that respect, those by whom they are elected, know all about them, and the only thing-that is needed is a policy. But the Government, by this recourse, will reduce as far as [possible its own responsibility and escape some portion of the hostility that is_ certain to be aroused, from this section or another, by any proposals for reform. There is no questioning the competency of the commission that will make recommendations. As it is a small one, its proposals should be framed more readily, after it has heard huge quantities of evidence, than if it was of larger dimensions. It will be a surprise, however, if revised gaming legislation comes before the present Parliament. I