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New Zealand Mail, Issue 1650, 14 October 1903, Page 70 (Supplement)

In ravin" evidence before the New South” Wales Select Committee on gambling, one witness, Thomas Alarheki Rose, described as a clerk, estimated that £1,593,400 was invested on liorseraem" each year, while £1,216,800 was yearly invested in pony, racing. The takings in the thirty betting^ shops he averaged at £3O a day, and those of the four total isaitor shojis at £IOO a day. The total invested in the metropolitan area on horse-racing, pony racing, betting and totalisator shops ha put down at about £3,408,000 yearly. To that had to he added the betting in clubs, and adding the hotting in “ two-up ” schools and pak-a-pu shops, Ra estimated the total at £4,000,000. Witness did not think any method could be devised to suppress betting, or even reduce its volume. Witness said that last year ho paid income tax on £9OOO, and it had cost him in that period between £2OOO and £3OOO to defend his business against the action of the police. He would undertake to invest £IOOO any day in the betting shops in Melbourne which were said to have been suppressed. In suppressing betting the police had a difficult task, as of 10 000 men who went into a betting shop 9999 had a friendly feeling towards the proprietor. He expressed the opinion that betting should be under State control, and undertook, if the State would give him a monopoly of bet-ting,-to form a syndicate in twenty-four hours that would pay £250,000 a year as a tax at the rate of 10 per cent cm the turnover*