Many Points Still To Be Explained About Betting Plan

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 June 1950, Page 7

Many Points Still To Be Explained About Betting Plan

WELLINGTON, This Day (0.C.). —Many points still remain to be explained about the operation of the off-course betting scheme but some of these will not be finally settled until the Totalisator Agency Board, which is to be appointed in terms of the Gaming Amendment Act, 1949, gets down to work. No concrete statement has been made at any time setting out the amount required to finance the scheme ■ although estimates have ranged as high as £250,000. As, totalisator investments are to suffer a further deduction of onehalf per cent maximum period of five years to meet the initial establishment and operating charges, it is possible to form a rough estimate of the amount of money to be made available to the Totalisator Agency Board which will control and administer off-course betting. Totalisator investments in New Zealand last year totalled £23,861,000. A deduction of one-half per cent would yield £119,300. On top of that, it has to be remembered that all offcourse investments under the new scheme will go through the totalisator and also be subject to the . deduction. i „ While any forecast as to legal offcourse betting totals must remain very much in the field of guesswork, it is thought probably that after the scheme is fairly well established, the annual turnover will be at least £10,000,000 and more, probably £20,000,000 or higher. Even if the lower estimate is accepted as a base, the one-half per cent, deduction on off-course investments would yield £50,000 yearly. And when the deduction from the present totalisator turnover is added, the board will have an amount of at least £170,000 a year at its disposal. Once the scheme outlined in the statement by the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr W. A. Bodkin) is approved by the New Zealand Racing and Trotting Conferences and by the Minister, its .administration will pass to the Totalisator Agency Board. This board, the members of which will be appointed by the Racing and Trotting Conferences, will make the appointments of officers, agents, ano employees. It will also have the power to frame the regulations necessary to operate the scheme and to control the admission of persons to any totalisator agency. The 1949 Act also states that the scheme may provide for the establishment of totalisator agencies in different places or in respect of different areas at times to be decided by the board.” ~ , , It is thought here that the board may decide to start operations in one or more of the provincial cities where, perhaps, it will be easier to obtain premises than in the metropolitan cities. Rents would also be cheaper there and the experience gained in operating on a restricted scale for a start would prove useful when the scope of the scheme is extended.

Experimental Bases The central provincial cities may be preferred and, in this connection, Palmerston North and Timaru have been suggested as possible experimental bases. The outlook for bookmakers is not good. Mr Bodkin has already indicated, in no uncertain terms, that once the scheme starts to operate, strong measures will be enforced to make bookmaking an exceedingly risky and costly occupation. It is anticipated that prison sentences will be imposed more frequently and for longer terms when a bookmaker’s guilt is established. Probably the effect will be that the better-known, well-established and more reputable bookmakers will give up the business and leave the field to others who regard a gaol sentence as an occupational risk. Credit betting is expressly forbidden under the proposed legal offcourse scheme and it is thought that a greater percentage of'the cash investments at presents made with bookmakers will, in future, go through the totalisatqr in order that totalisator odds can be obtained.