GAMING AND BETTING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 14202, 26 October 1906, Page 6

GAMING AND BETTING.

There is no chance of the Premier’s Gaming and Betting Bill being passed into law during the present session, and there will be plenty of time to consider it during the recess. Its' chief purpose seems to bo to confine betting, whether with the totalisator or with the bookmaker, to licensed racecourses, and in this it will have the sympathy of everyone who is concerned by the rapid spread of the more disreputable forms of gambling. ft would bo a little difficult to explain why a wager made on a racecourse is less objectionable than a wager made on a running track, and we are not inclined to attempt the task, hut we are ready to welcome any measure that will restrict the area of gambling. If the new law should show that it is possible to confine betting to the racecourses it will also show that it is possible to stop it altogether and then the Government will have no excuse for failing to proceed to its extinction. In the meantime the racing clubs will

have no cause to complain. They will be required to pay a small annual tee for their license and to part with another 10 per cent of their totalisator receipts, but if the law is enforced they will obtain a monopoly of the betting business and a considerable addition to their “ gates.” If people are prevented from making a wager with a bookmaker in town or telegraphing their investments to the totalisator, they will be compelled to go to the races themselves and to pay for admission to the course and stands. Wo should not be very sanguine, however, of the new law producing the results which we believe are honestly desired by Sir Joseph Ward and bis colleagues. If the racing clubs around the large cities were allowed to educate -lie public in. the delights of the totalisator during thirty or forty days in the year it would be rather hopeless to expect their pupils to refrain from employing their knowledge on other occasions. But, as we have already indicated, we shall be glad to welcome the measure as an experiment. If it succeeds, the Government having pronounced against the vice of gambling cannot stop at the mere regulation of the evil. It must go on to its complete abolition, and we are satisfied that in this step it would have the warm approval of a great majority of the people.