BETTING PROBLEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22640, 30 January 1937, Page 9

BETTING PROBLEM

NEW SOUTH WALES STARTING PRICE INQUIRY CONCERN OF GOVERNMENT [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, Jan. 21 The New South Wales Government is making keen inquiries into the starting price betting evil. It has indicated that it is seriously considering changing the penalty from fines—on a sliding scale, according to the number of convictions —to imprisonment without the option of a fine. It has deputed one of its Ministers, Mr. Dunningham, to investigate the working and results of a recent drastic Queensland Act.

1 here is no doubt that starting-price betting is having a serious effect on legitimate sport. Attendances at Sydney race meetings remain almost at mid-depression level. Numerous facilities for starting-price betting have undoubtedly kept thousands of people away from racecourses. Radio broadeasting is one of those facilities. Several of the commercial stations broadcast, before each race, starters, jockeys and barrier positions, then describe tiio race and give official results, followed a few minutes later by betting quotations. Ruling of Court These broadcasts are done from vantage points outside the course, and the Supreme Court, in a racing club's action, recently decided that the broadcasters were not trespassing on the club's property and rights. Radio receivers are in nearly every hotel, and starting-price bookmakers are either in the hotels or close by to satisfy clients' wishes "to have a little bit on." Thousands of householders and their wives sit by the wireless and spend their Saturday and Wednesday afternoons in betting by means of a telephone. Until the State authorities receive the Postal Department's help in stopping the use of the telephone for betting, little can effectively be done, they say, to suppress starting-price betting. The Postal Department certa-inly cuts off a subscriber convicted of receiving bets, but does nothing to refuse him another number if he applies. Efiect Upon Sport The effects of starting-price betting are seen in other ways than in poor racecourse attendances. Organisers and ciub secretaries say that few and fewer youths are offering for Saturday afternoon cricket, football, tennis, and other sports because preference is given to betting "flutters." The attendances at those sports hare shown a tendency to dwindle for the same reason. Employers allege that efficiency in factories and offices is reduced 25 per cent on Wednesday afternoons because of employees' interest in betting and results of midweek racing fixtures. Disclosures at the recent Royal Commission have convinced the Government that a section of the police force has been demoralised through the same cause. Indeed, Ministers seem convinced that the illegal betting "racket" lias reached a stage where it is adversely affecting the State economically and morally.

Finding a Remedy

The camp is divided when it comes to a remedy. One section favours the South Australian methods of licensing and strictly controlling betting shops. The other inclines to the Queensland experiment of drastic suppression of all engaged in illegal betting. The NewSouth Wales Government is now conducting a diligent inquiry into both methods. In view of the composition of the Ministry, suppression rather than licensing is likely to be eventually favoured in South Australia the Government obtains huge revenues from its licensed shops which are so numerous and so well supervised that the illegal start-ing-price merchants no longer exist. Racing clubs are assisted from the funds thus obtained, and also have benefited from the legislation of course bookmaking, totalisator betting only having been previously legal. Queensland Legislation In Queensland, although tho recent drastic law has led to a disappearance of most of Brisbane's 600 or 700 betting shops, the legislation is not regarded as entirely successful. It has not had the expected effect in eradicating otl-the-course betting. The law is evaded so ingeniously that risk of prosecution is considered remote. The operator with an office, "a place" under the Act, has been replaced by the operator moving quietly among cnsto>nors on race mornings, or collecting commissions in homes and offices on a strictly cash basis. Starting-price bettors working from door to door, even canvassing Government offices, have replaced operatives with offices. More people have been encouraged to attend races. Loss of .€IO,OOO a year is unofficially estimated to be accruing on telephone traffic and by discontinuance of hundreds of direct lines. The New South Wales Government will he faced with public "passive resistance.'' A suppressive law will be unpopular. The love of a "flutter" is too ingrained in Australians to make the majority of them regard such a law as anything but oppressive.