WHAT IS A BUCKET

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 13 April 1922, Page 3

WHAT IS A BUCKET

ORIGIN OF THE TERM

The term of "bucket-shop has appeared recently in the cable messages emanating from New York, in connection with a slump in securities in New York and a crisis in cotton in New Orleans., What is a "bucket-shop"? The origin of the word is American and is supposed to have arisen in Chicago. The Board of Trade there controlling the grain markets forbade dealing in "options" in grain of less than 5000 bushels. An "Open Board of Trade" or unauthorised exchange was opened for the purposes of small gamblers in the neighbouring street, before the rooms of the Board of Trade The lift used by the members of the Board of Trade would" be sent down to bring up I from the "Open Board of Trade" what j was known as a "bucketful of the I smaller speculators, when business was k slack. "Bucket-shop has since become a slang financial term for the office - or business of an inferior class of stockbroker, who is not a member of the official exchange, and conducts speculative operations for clients who deposit a margin of cover. The operation consists, as a rule, of a simple bet or wager between the broker and client, in pretence of an actual purchase or sale being attempted. The term is sometimes, though loosely and wrongfully, applied to all stockbrokers who are not members of a recognised exchange.