GAMING POLL

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 58, Issue 4109, 7 March 1949, Page 5

GAMING POLL

MR DENT’S STATEMENT JOCKEY CLUB PRESIDENT ADVOCATE FOR THE PROPOSAL In connection with the Gaming Poll to be held on Wednesday next, March 9, Mr Hugh Dent, president of the Ohinemuri Jockey Club, has issued the following statement. He particularly stresses that every constituent in Hauraki should exercise his or her vote, and briefly summed up the position as follows:—

“ A vote for the proposal is a vote against the illegal bookmaker; it is a vote for law and order. “ The Royal Gaming Commission, after an exhaustive and impartial investigation, found that off-course betting was inevitable, and, in consequence, recommended to the Government the proposal for legal off-course betting, upon which you are now asked to vote,” stated Mr Dent in a letter to the Gazette. “ No matter how stern the law may be or how harshly it is administered, long experience has shown that people will bet away from the course. The conferences’ scheme provides the only reasonable means of putting this betting on an open and legal footing and doing away'with the evils inherent in bookmaking.

“If the proposal is carried the Government will then have a mandate from the people to deal effectively with the illegal .bookmaker.

“ The scheme entails all moneys going through the totalisator and thus being dealt with in precisely the same manner as moneys which go through the totalisator on the course. As a result no question of private gain arises. Such profits as accrue will go back to the sport to maintain a reasonable standard of stakes and course amenities and the State will benefit greatly by the increased revenue from taxation. “ The scheme should not lead to an increase in betting. It does away with credit betting and so protects the person who cannot afford to bet. Betting agencies will be conducted in a manner similai- to the Post Office Savings Bank or ordinary trading banks. They will be decently controlled and no encouragement will be given in any shape or form for people to loiter therein.

“ In conclusion may I say that a vote for the proposal is a vote in favour of an honest attempt to deal with a state of affairs in urgent need ‘of remedy whilst a vote against the proposal, however strongly it may be based upon moral objections to gambling, has as a practical result the continuation of the present state of affairs and in particular of the bookmaker.

“ Do not allow matters of personal bias impair your judgment upon an issue which is of such pressing national importance. Remember— Strike cut the bottom line,” Mr Dent concludes. AT PAEROA DISTRICT HEADQUARTERS Under the off-course betting scheme investments will be made at agencies, which will be opened in a minimum of 290 centres. Investments made at the agencies will be collated and transmitted to district offices, of which there will be 16 —Whangarei, Auckland, Paeroa, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Welrfhgton, Napier, Gisborne, Palmerston North, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin, Greymouth, Timaru, Dunedin and Invercargill. These offices will be selected because they are convenient toll centres. The following will be agencies in the Paeroa district: Katikati, Tauranga, Thames, Whakatane, Ngatea, Te Aroha, Waihi, Opotiki, Te Puke, Waitoa and probably others. The district offices again collate all investments received by them and pass the resulting totals to head office, which will be situated in Wellington. Head office carries out the final collation and transmits the result to the racecourse concerned, to be received by the totalisator before it opens. Immediate connections between points will be effected by pre-arranged toll lines. The use of trunk telephone lines will be reduced to a minimum by the collating set out.