Church Of England Views On Gambling

Northern Advocate, 17 March 1947, Page 5

Church Of England Views On Gambling

ip.A.i WELLINGTON. This Day. The views of the Church of England were presented to the Gaming Commission today in the form of a statement by the Public and Social Affairs Committee of the church. The statement, read by the secretary of the committee (Dr John Nicol) ex- { plained that the committee had been [ authorised by the General Synod to { present the church’s views. ! It pointed out that the committee I had been in touch with other churches, | which had presented a combined statej menl. and was in general agreement I with their views. It recg'onised that gambling was not a I subject on which a binding pronouncejment had been made by the Church, and that there existed among members a variety of opinions. It recognised, too. that the problem was complicated by the association of j the bulk of modern gambling with a sport of great antiquity. DESIRE FOR EASY LIVING On the other hand there was no doubt that leaders of the Church of England had declared themselves emphatically against the gambling habit arising from the desire of easy gain and leading to excessive love of excitement and to instability. Gambling on horse races had, in the committee’s opinion, passed beyond all reasonable limits of moderation when sums totalling as much as £940.000 were put through the machine at a single metropolitan four-day meeting, especially when it considered that all this must have neon additional to the huge volume of illegal betting relating 1o the same meeting. It viewed with concern the increasing revenue derived by the state from racing, and would be still more concerned if the state were to exploit gambling as a source of new revenue. THIRD PARTIES’ HARVEST A notable feature of the totalisator and of alluvial gold art unions was that third parties reaped a financial harvest from their operations. The more that members of the public gambled the greater the revenues accruing to racing and trotting clubs and to persons engaged in organising art unions, or in selling art union tickets. The committee advocated elimination of. or the reduction as far as piacticable of third-party profit from gambling. It recognised that reforms m the gaming law might well be called so, but found it extremely difficult to advocate specific reforms because of the fear that provision of any new legal facilities for betting might simply mean a further increase in total investments. LIMIT TOTE PERMITS The committee favoured reasonable limitation of the number of totalisator permits granted to racing and trotting clubs, and desired to see race days restricted. except for very special local reasons, to Saturdays and public holidays. Race meetings conducted on ordinary working days must contribute towards unsettlement in industry. Tiie committee looked with disfavour on the practice of financing charitable causes by proceeds derived from gambling, because !R feared that good causes might become the pretext for permitting or encouraging a social evil. If alluvial gold art unions, as commonly conducted in New Zealand, were regarded from the viewpoint of the investor they were found to give a very poor return. Reference to the New Zealand Yeai Book showed that only 25 to 30 per cent of gross takings were returned to the investors as prizes. COSTLY MECHANISM If they were regarded primarily as a mechanism for raising funds to aid charitable objects the mechanism was seen to be extremely costly. In 1943-44, for example, the net proceeds of 12 art unions amounted to £123,070. but the commission on sales and expenses amounted to £68,005, apart altogether from prizes and lottery duty. 4 The net proceeds always seemed m be less than half the gross takings. • If social services or, worthy institutions required public support, the committee felt this should be given by means which did not divert a large share of the contributors' money into the pockets of third persons.