BETTING IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13782, 22 June 1908, Page 5

BETTING IN AMERICA.

■ ■■» SUPREME COURT RULING. VICTORY FOR RACECOURSES. By Telegraph.Press Association.Copyright. (Received June 21, 'i.40 p.m.) New York, June 20. It is reported that 150 out of the 300 police on duty at the Sheep's Head Bay races have been withdrawn, owing to an injunction granted by the State Supreme Court against the dispersion of groups on the lawns" or in the betting rings, on the mere assumption that they were engaged in betting. The managers of the racecourses regard this development as a great victory. .' The message evidently concerns the new anti-gambling laws iu America. When Mr. Hughes, Governor of New York, brought forward a Bill to penalise racecourse gamblingor rather to givo effect to the. longdishonoured provisions of the State Constitution to that effect—the argument most i forcibly presented against him was that if betting were prevented racing could not go on. The Governor replied in effect that in that case the sooner racing was stopped the better, and has induced the Legislature to pass his Bill. This law is only one of an American series. While New York has prohibited racecourse gambling, Illinois. Missouri, and Arkansas have absolutely abolished thoroughbred racing, and Kentucky, having started on a similar quest some months ago, has possibly ' accomplished it by this time. Not. Kentucky alone, but all the horsebreeding and horse-owning States are apparently affected. Mr. James R. Keene and other well-known American sportsmen, it was reported last week, are sending their racers to England in consequence of the -gambling laws in (heir own country. An extraordinary moral wave " is now passing over America, which is not content with enforcing liquor prohibition over great stretches of territory, but must also silence the gambler, and therefore take the occupation from the racehorsc-owncr. The interesting thing will be to see whether this " wave" is a mere whim or the expression of resolute moral reform.