MACHINE V. BOOKIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1265, 28 May 1896, Page 24

MACHINE V. BOOKIES.

One objection, from a bookmaker’s point of view, to mechanical gambling, as the machine and its methods may be called, is that it allows no backing of doubles. The chance of picking that very dillioult combination is considerably lessened by the presence of the machine and by the absence of the bookmaker. The percentage of punters, and also the percentage of “hookies” is considerably decreased. On the other hand, the machine does not give any credit “ verbal bills at a month,” as someone called a bookmaker’s promise to pay when asked ; nor does it clear from the course on sundry occasions. There is another thing in favour of the machine, and that is that backers can fairly well judge what their fancy is paying, and make their own odds, while the bookmaker makes his odds from tlm start on a favourite, and will not give any bettor, oven when heavy commissions are at workon the other horses in a race and the supposed favourite is left stranded on the machine. No, he merely shortens the odds on the others. But after having stated the arguments in favour of the totalisator it becomes now nocessary to givo tho other side, and perhaps in tlm opinion of my readers, as well as in my own, it will prove tho stronger of the two. Wo have had both sides of the question argued out. Oue of tho most lucid letters on tho subject appeared in the Press of last week; the arguments employed were very much same as those ventilated in tho week before last’s Mail. Tho writer says that the totalisator educates people to gambling, because it encourages that objectionable class, tho “ walking tote.” “There are hundreds of people in this Colony,” bo says, “ who never go to a race meet ing, and yet many of these same people make it a practice to invest money with * the walking totes, and by this means hundreds, and oven thousands, of pounds are annually diverted from tho totalisator to tho pockets of these individuals—Hie walking totes—and the racing clubs and the Government lose tho percentage. It is useless to try and eradicate ‘tlm walking tote.’ They are Coexistent with the machine. Laws may ho passed making it illegal to lay or take ‘ Into odd-:,’ but as long as the people who take the odds are not also liable to line ami imprisonment, all hope ot .suppressing tlm evil is out ot the question.

This is quite true; tho walking fob*, as ho is called, is not a bookmaker, lie is only a fraudulent imitation of the machine, an animal who ought to be trodden under foot with the heel of the law. Yot legislation will not totally eradicate these creatures; the only tiling seems to be tho abolition of tlm machine. Someone says, “ Why not enforce more stringent racing rules?” That is only another form of legislation, and in any case could only bo made to apply to the actual presence cf these “walking totes” on the course. Most of this laying of totalisator odds is done outside the course altogether, often by letter, as 1 pointed out in last issue. No the machine stands sponsor lor all that kind of thing, and tho only apparent remedy is its abolition, it lias boon pointed out that tho attempted abolition of the bookmakers and layers of totalisator odds in Australia has increased the amounts put through the machine. Perhaps so; and if that is true, it is only another argument in favour of its being done away with. It shows at onco that the general public who never bet before its introduction have rushed largely to it, and have poured their ueney into it in showers, and

when the bookmakers wore cloarod off, those who betted with them have had to turn also to tho machine. If tho machine were done away with I maintain that no more people would do business with the bookmakeis than before there was any totalisator.