BETS WITH BOOKMAKER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20482, 6 February 1930, Page 14

BETS WITH BOOKMAKER.

FIFTEEN MEN FINED.

PENALTIES TOTAL £145.

SEQUEL TO POLICE RAID.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] HAMILTON, Wednesday.

Fines totalling £145 were imposed on 15 customers of Harry Abraham Samuels, %v'ho was recently convicted of bookmaking, in a series of prosecutions heard in the Hamilton Magistrate's Court to-day. Detective-Sergeant Thompson said the prosecutions arose out of a raid on Samuels' premises on December 31, as a result of which Samuels was fined £3OO. A large quantity of betting material was found and among the documents were instructions and cheques from customers. The letters were addressed to 11. Cooper, P.O. Box 257, Hamilton, who, the detective stated, was identical with Samuols.

Fifteen defendants were prosecuted today and all wore fined £lO, with the exception of one, who was fined £5. Many pleaded that the bets were the first they had made with a bookmaker. One man said ho had no idea it was a serious offence to jbet with a bookmaker. Counsel in another case said the prosecutions were the first of their kind in the Auckland Province, and tho second in New Zealand.

Tho magistrate, Mr. Wyvern Wilson, said the maximum penalty was £IOO. He thought a tithe of the maximum a reasonable fine. Tho prosecutions could not bo treated as a novelty, as tho law had been in operation for nine years.

There was an enormous amount of racing in New Zealand, said tho magistrate. It was betting that kept the game of racing going, and if bookmaking were to bo permitted it was possible that a great economic loss through waste oftime and money on almost every day of tho week would occur. Prosecutions of tho kind beforo tho Court were intended to stop this loss. Tho following were fined £lO each:—• Murdoch Robertson, Waihou; John Bobertson, Waihou; Walton Thomas Bowditch, To Aroha; Richard Edward James, To Aroha; William Boys, To Awamutu; Robert Garrick, lo Awamutu; John Teddy, junior, Ohaupo; Charles Anion, Motumaoho ; Edward John Karl, Taupiri; Robert Casey, Waharoa; Horace Edward Salter, Waharoa; Edmund O'Neill, Arapuni; Percy Selby, Tamahere; Donald Valentine Mayor, Tuhikaramea. John Farrant* Motumaoho, was fined £5, owing to his poor circumstances and to the fact that his was an isolated bet.