THE BOOKMAKERS AGAIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6492, 11 April 1908, Page 8

THE BOOKMAKERS AGAIN

When Parliament by the deciding vote of that eminent legislator, Kaihau, M.P., determined to give bookmakers the right to bet On racecourses, it laid the train of a lot of trouble. The racing clubs resented the innovation, and took no trouble to disguise their feeling, but in view of the admonitions of the Attorney-Genera! and certain covert threats as to what would happen to them in case they attempted to evade the law, they capitulated, and for a time it looked as though the sword would be converted iiito a ploughshare and_the lion, lie down with the lamb. The bookmakers have been paying the exorbitant amounts demanded of them, and making tho usual profits out of the asinine takers of odds, and, except for lapses of memory on the part of occasional individuals when settling time came, the dual arrangement can he said to have worked fairly successfully. Now, suddenly, at the Manawatu meeting, one of the best-conducted and most sportsmanlike gatherings in the Dominion, some spirit of cantankorousnces suddenly enters into the hearts of the bookmakers, and we have tho sxiectacle of the stewards begging and imploring the encroaching penoillers to keep within bounds, and oven invoking the aid of a Minister of the Crown in a fruitless effort to restore control. The bookmakers set the Racing Club at defiance, encroaching into the totalisator area, and driving the operating officials, to distraction with their noisy clamour. Some of them are reported to have gone further, and, in contravention of the statute, persisted in laying the odds after the official time of closing the totalisator. The tactics of these licensed bettors defy dissection. It is'hard to determine whether they feel so strong in legislative and administrative sanction that they intend to establish a claim to an overruling right to bet in any part of a racecourse, or whether they feel a desperate intuition that their shrift will he short, and intend to adopt the motto, “A short life and a merry one.”

It is reported that Mr Wilford, M.P., wflio, in his capacity of legislator, was os anxious to concede bookmakers’ rights as in his capacity of counsel he is strenuous to retain thorn, has been asked to take action against the Racing Club on behalf of those bookmakers whose licenses were refused. It would bo well, if the case is to be fought out 'on its merits, if the“ Racing Club should retaliate by taking action against such layers of odds as were guilty of pursuing their calling after totalisator closing time. And, as the bookmakers have formed an association for defence, so likewise ✓the racing clubs should combine to fight the whole issue, This is as far as criticism can go on the issue in point. The larger question is well set out by Mr R. S. Abraham in another part of this issue. The president of the Manawatu Racing Club emphasises what many people have long realised, viz*, that the evil of gambling is incidental on over-racing, and that over-racing is the result of & too-weak concession of racing permits by the Colonial Secretary in times past. The leading racing men of the Dominion have placed on record their disagreement with the continual issue of permits, but the practice was not discontinued until the over-growth of racing became a positive scandal. Then when this was fully realised, and a check had been put upon the evil, the Parliament of* New Zealand, by grace of Hen are Kaihau, gave the bookmakers a status, and now we have “ confusion worse confounded,** and our little community of horse-worshippers and others is in a perfect turmoil.