BOOKIES' SECRETS

Northern Advocate, 8 March 1947, Page 6

BOOKIES' SECRETS

IP.A.) WELLINGTON. This Day. Evidence in .support, of the ease for the licensing of bookmakers for handling off-course belling was {.liven yesterday before the Gaining Commission bv the secretary of the Dominion | Sportsmen's Association <Mr M. I ! I Cleg;;). j He said the association had four I branches, and the membership, though ' it fluctuated, had at times been up to 400. No betting was carried on in the '.fliee premises. That was a rigid rule. The association, as a body, was not ■ concerned with betting operations. Bookmakers at present were not just layers of totalisator odds. . Mr fleenan: Does anybody make a i straight-out book now? j Mr Clegg: Yes, on a race like tlie | New Zealand Cup. There was one j when Bruce won at the last Wellington i meeting, but it is the exception rather I than the rule. CONCESSION DOUBLES To Mr Leicester (for the Sportmen's Association), Mr Clegg said he : disagreed entirely with an assertion I by the Racing Conference that odris-on j doubles charts were almost always less I thah an all-up bet would yield. There ! was a demand today for a concession j double, under which the two first were j paid 75 per cent, of the odds, a first and second 15 per cent., and a first and third 10 per cent. To Mr Donnelly (for the Racing

Conference), witness said his association was not asking for licences to bet on courses, but only off courses. He i denied that it would 7 be a temptation j to a bookmaker standing to lose £4OOO I or £SOOO by a certain horse winning j the second ieg of a double to offer in- ( dueements to jockeys or owners to ’ have that possibility removed. | INFORMATION FROM COURSE I Asked if the association had disi ciplinary powers, witness said it certainly had, and recently a man was refused further membership after a complaint that he had declined to pay a certain bet. Mr Donnelly: How does your association get results and dividends to its j members? Mr Clegg: Through the telephone, it j comes to me and I put it through, j How do you get it off the course?— | That is a secret. A secret to you only?—Members ol j the association know how it is done, j Witness said there would be a posI sibility of the odds being reduced if | there were only one bookmaker in a j small town. With good telephone connections ,a bettor could lay bets with an operator in another town. Hundreds of doubles charts from Wellington went all over New Zealand. ALL HAVE PHONES The association's 337 members would all have telephones, added witness. Without them neither the association ncr the members could provide the service they did. , Illegal betting on horse racing was estimated at £24.000.000 a year. j The association was against morel race dates because there were enough now. and ample opportunity to bet on Saturdays. If opposed mid-week racing. If the telephones of members were disconnected, the association would | take immediate steps to get others, “not necessarily in our name.” Bookmakers had agents in shops, but he knew of none in factories or working lifts. The commission was 1/- to 1/6 in the £. The association did not pay fines imposed on members. Replying to Mr J. W. Hecnan, a member of the commission, witness said he saw nothing inconsistent between the association's statement that it would be undignified for the post office to handle bets and the fact that the association and bookmakers now rented teleplior.es from the department, which were used in connection with bookmaking. During the hearing it was stated that when bookmakers were licensed they were not supposed to operate off the course, but they did so. Mr Hecnan said they used to make their business known outside the courses through advertisements, such as: “So and So and So and So, Wool • brokers. Good prices for the November clip.’’ Mr W. E. Leicester, counsel for the Sportsmen's Association: “I do not like that word clip."