RACE BETTING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22119, 27 May 1935, Page 11

RACE BETTING

BOOKMAKERS' REIGN LARGE BUSINESS DONE TOTALISATOR INCREASES ABOLITION ACT OF 1910 No. nr. In the second year of their legalised reign the bookmakers of New Zealand paid fees totalling £120,000 for the privilege of betting on the racecourses. In some cases the proportion of clubs' income from Jicence fees was very high. For instance, in the year ended April, 1910, the Canterbury Jockey Club derived £6220 from bookmakers and £17,339 from the totalisator tax, comparative figures for the Metropolitan Trotting Club being £5640 and £10,964. For the four days of the Auckland summer meeting of 1909-10 49 bookmakers paid in fees £4079. Yet the turnover of the totalisator, which had been affected by the admission of the bookmakers in previous years, reached new heights. It was a time of rising prosperity. The picture theatre and the motor-car had not "arrived" to reduce the amount of money tho average individual could apply to the amusement of racing and gambling. Wave of Alarm

With the New Zealand totalisator figure approaching the sum of £2,000,000 in a year and the bookmak-. t ing business showing every evidence of flourishing, a wave of alarm went through the country to which politicians were quick to respond. At that day probably more people had faith in the efficacy of prohibitory legislation in the field of morals than is now the case. There were advocates even in Parliament of the abolition of the totalisator as well as. the bookmaker.

It was on the bookmaker, however, that antagonism mainly centred and before the extinguishing bill was brought forward it was seen to be inevitable that it would be carried. The swing of votes was partly due to the fact that, as one prominent member put it, the bookmaker had been legalised through a combination of "the hawks and the pigeons " The "hawks" were supposed to be the bookmakers' friends and the "pigeons" those who voted for legalisation in the belief that their activities thereafter would be confined to the racecourses and that temptation to bet would be removed from the streets and old quarters of the towns.

Undesirable Characters What gave added strength to the movement was that there had been a. great deal of "welching" and corruption associated with the bookmaking business, and while the reputable men had some reason for complaining that they were made to suffer because of the indiscriminate manner in which clubs issued licences, the weight of opinion was against the whole system. From the Bench the late Mr. Justice Chapman condemned the law as against the interests of honesty and morality. It was, he said, a direct encouragement of a criminal class.' In a report the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Dinnie, attributed an increase in cases of burglary and theft to influx of undesirables from Australia due to the indiscriminate granting of betting licences. When not engaged in betting they resorted to crime, he said. The following year the Police Commissioner, Mr. Waldegrade, said that the question of licensing bookmakers would have to be very seriously considered and some restriction placed upon the many undesirable characters who under the law followed the profession of bookmaking. »

Sir George Clifford's Attitude It was stated in Parliament that at a meeting within a few miles of Wellington no less than four of the licensed bookmakers were defaulters, one having defaulted at four different meetings within three years. During that period at Wanganui, Woodvillc, Takapuna, Hawke's Bay, Dannevirke,' Gisborne, Masterton and Chris tchurch, there had been 18 licensed bookmakers who had been defaulters. Seven of them bad served terms in gaol for assault, theft or issuing false The president of the Pacing Conference, the late Sir George Clifford, who had always opposed the "statutory enforcement" of the licensed bookmaker upon the clubs, led the attack outside Parliament. His objections included "the upsetting of safeguards, laboriously built up by years of improving regulation, the lessening of confidence in trainers and jockeys, - the temptation held out to unscrupulous owners, the contrast between ready-money speculation on the totalisator and the entangling credit system of the bookmaker and the all-pervading and multifarious temptations of the bookmakers." Replying to the argument that the clubs had not "purified their statutory visitors by selection" he affirmed that they were powerless to do so. They had looked to the bookmakers themselves to purge their own ranks, but they had failed to do so. Reply by Bookmakers In a letter to the Prime Minister four representative bookmakers all in a large way of business replied to this. " From the moment this Act came into operation," they said, " the clubs displayed a marked hostility to the bookmaker and to bring his name and calling into disrepute granted licences to notorious welchers and bad characters. . The clubs cannot plead ignorance. In many cases the bookmakers of standing have made the antecedents and character of applicants known to the secretary of the club, but absolutely no action'has been taken." * The late Hon. J. A. Millar declared that the racing clubs had refused to consider a bookmakers' proposal that they should form a Tattersall's Club which would guarantee the character and financial position of its members and that licences should be issued only to members because they wanted the betting monopoly. As to running a horse "crooked" he was asked, "Did the totalisator ever square a. jockey?" to which he replied, "The jockey squares the totalisator many a time," his contention being that there was just as much danger of a horse being "influenced" through totalisator operations as through bookmaker-betting. The late Mr. T. E. Taylor, an uncompromising opponent of gambling in all its forms, said he could not understand why the bookmaker should be so persistently reviled and the big horseracing owner so persistently admired. He suggested that there was the same percentage of those capable of sharp practice in each group. However, the abolition law was passed near the end of 1910, bookmaking still exists and talk of legalisation is again in the air. (To be concluded)