NATIONALISING THE FIELDER.

NZ Truth, Issue 473, 11 July 1914, Page 8

NATIONALISING THE FIELDER.

Of all nations m. the world, Ger[many, the home of the State totalisator, has been the first to openly and legitimately legalise • the bookmaker. After some years of failure to suppress the bookmaker iv favor «pf the machine, ,(3ermany has at last decided to make the calling legally respectable and capable of being parried out openly. The State is tQ appoint its own bookmakers, under conditions and codes that aye as legal as 'the laws of the Medes and Persians. There will be State-ppncessioned bookmakers and none others, who will only have the right to operate m their own districts under conditions that failure to comply with will mean a two years' imprisonment. As a spt-pn* against the reduction of 4 1-3 off the totalisator commission charges, the books will have to pay 6 per cent. The profits aro shared between 'the Empire ami thp federated States, the States expending their share of the profits m encouraging horse-breeding. One condition of the recognition of the bookmaker la that ho must not wager with Jockeys, whether professional or amateur, or there wiJl be trouble In store for him.