A STATE LOTTERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21214, 20 December 1930, Page 13

A STATE LOTTERY.

SWEEP CLUB FORMED.

CAMPAIGN FOR MEMBERS

LAUNCHED

(Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, December 10.

A society known as the New Zealand Tattersalls Sweep Club has recently been incorporated, its purposes being to petition Parliament asking that a referendum should be taken on the question of holding lotteries on the lines of Tattersalls or Tasmania. A national campaign for members has been launched, Mr Vivian H. Potter being the New Zealand organiser. Discussing the matter, Mr Potter said that it was common knowledge that a huge sum was annually sent out of New Zealand for lotteries, including Tattersalls of Tasmania, the Golden Casket of Queensland, the Calcutta Sweep, and others held in the Argentine, France, Spain, and Ireland. . The object of the lelub was to submit to the people the proposal and so give them a chance, of saying whether this huge drain upon the financial resources of New Zealand should continue. The motto, of the club was: “What you cannot prohibit you must control.” No means had so far been devised of preventing New Zealand money from going to overseas lotteries, and if the drain could not be stopped it would be infinitely better to run lotteries in the country and so keep the money here. Many non-gamblers prominent in business had expressed their support of the scheme on this ground, .■ Mr Potter said he had ascertained that in Auckland a group of seven agents of Tattersalls sent away the total sum of over £3OO a week, and he had reason to believe that an agent in Sydney received by post from individual New Zealanders no jess than £4OO a week., These facts indicated the volume of business done in this country, in ’which there were hundreds of forwarding agents and many thousands of people who sent their money direct to Australian agents. -It was probable that a sweepstake on the lines of Tattersalls would return to the Government £200,000 a year if the Tasmanian rate of tax were imposed, but more important still would be the retention in the country of all the money involved. From the result of the club’s canvass to date, he said, there appeared to be every likelihood of a very large membership being built up to give strength to the request for a referendum.