ATTACK ON GAMBLING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21377, 29 December 1932, Page 10

ATTACK ON GAMBLING

CLERGYMAN'S ASSERTIONS PROFITS OF BOOKMAKERS DOG RACING MEETINGS [from our own correspondent] LONDON, Nov. 22 A vigorous attack on gambling was mado by .Canon Peter Green,-of Manchester, at the Durham Diocesan Conference. " I have tried gambling with an imaginary 'bob,' " said Canon Green, " and following tho favourite in ante-post betting is most fatal, following a jockey being slightly less so. I have followed an expert and sometimes my own intelligence, and there is not sixpence of difference in the year. The experts do not know anything, and nobody knows it better than thoy do." Canon Green estimates that bookmakers in this country handle about £400,000,000 every year, and retain 5s out of every 1 7s. He contended that gambling lowered the output of wealth by at least 20 per cent, through wasted time and friction duping working hours. " How many small shopkeepers go bankrupt in the course of. a year because the money that should come to them has gone to a bookmaker?" he continued. " There arc 100,000 cases of embezzlement in a year directly due to gambling, and it is the cause of the corruption of all decent sport." " Scandal of Dog Racing " Canon Green attacked the " terrible scandal of dog racing," which, he said, had brought the racecourse to the back doors of hundreds of thousands of work-ing-class homes. " Dog racing tracks are attended by young with babies in arms, and children subscribe a penny each to make up a shilling in order to have a bet," he said. He alleged that swindling practices were in force on some tracks, and that after a race money was thrown into the totalisator by the totalisator authorities to lower the amount to be divided. "The whole' thing is honeycombed with fraud," he asserted. Regarding the Irish Sweep, Canon Green alleged that only Is lOd out of every 10s ticket went to the hospitals, and said that a newspaper devoting two pages on two days to publishing the drawers of winning tickets would have to devote the same space for four and a-half days to publish the losers. The Bishop of Durham, after a lengthy debate, said the prevalence of betting in one form or another was having the effect of disordering the public imagination and disgusting the public with honest work. A resolution was passed declaring "that the Churches, as a contribution to stemming the evil of gambling, should eliminate all forms of gambling, sweepstakes, lotteries and raffles from the method of raising money for Church purposes." Questions by a Bishop

A call to church-people to face the problems of gambling, betting and totalisator clubs was made on Sunday by the Bishop o£ Carlisle. Dr. Williams, preaching in Carlisle Cathedral, asked his congregation as Christians "Do you really want a totalisator club to be started in every town?" "Do you really want a greyhound track in most quarters?" "Is there any real doubt at all that, supposing you have your greyhound track, it is a bad thing for young people to watch older people staking money that they cannot afford to lose, in order that they may have *a remote chance of obtaining more money—that they have not earned?" "If there is any doubt on matters like this, are we not to do something about it?" If Christians were doing their duty, he continued, it would not be possible for bookmakers to introduce betting at annual sports. s

" It would not bo possible for a football club to bs led to a desire to establish a greyhound track in order to add to its receipts; nor would it bo possible, if we were really anxious to help our hospitals, for the wasteful method of draws to be established. If people sent to the hospital less than half the sum they give for a hospital sweep ticket, that hospital would be getting twice as much as it is getting at present from the proceeds of the draw."