“Outside the Act”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 162, 26 June 1926, Page 5

“Outside the Act”

QUESTIONABLE GAMES. Minimum of skill. Auckland, June 25. °lt seems to me that the games have just that degree of skill that take them out of the Act,’” said Mr. J. W. Boynton, S.M., in the Police Court when he dismissed charges against Maurice Darling, Frank De Lyall, and James McCorkindale, showmen, who had stalls at the winter show, the three being charged with playing in a public place a game of chance known as “hoxball.” McCorkindale being further charged with playing “sky alloy,” another game of chance. * The defence was that the games were games of skill and not of chance.

After describing in detail tho manner in which the games were played, the Magistrate continued: “The law as to such games is unsatisfactory. One section rules that any game with skill in it, however small, is not a game of chance and another equally weighty that even if there is skill in the game if the element of chance enters largely into it, it is not a game of skill. In both these games the skill to be possibly acquired is small. A tall man with long arms in playing “boxball” may reach to within a few inches of the edge of the holes and with a little practice should be able to drop the ball into any desired pockets, while a short person or a child is at a serious disadvantage. In ‘sk v alley’ there is also very little skill At the top of th(> table where the ball drops over the edge of the incline into the pockets the green baize is thicker than in the other parts of the. table, ami this tends to force the ball back. In such a case another throw of the hall is granted. A skilled player would play with just sufficient force io semi the hall over the edge, and with practice would acquire a certain skill in placing the ball info the selected boles. If the law is to be altered, and it certainly should be. in the interests of our children, the text ought to be not as at present.’’ The Magistrate concluded with the words of Judge Edwards. “It is a species of amusement designed to extract small sums of money from the pockets of the foolish, principally the young ami foolish, who are visitors io racecourses and other places of public amusement. It docs more than empty their pockets; it inoculates them with the fever of gambling, a device already too prevalent in the community.”