TOTALISATOR AT HOME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21537, 8 January 1932, Page 8

TOTALISATOR AT HOME

MACHINE NOT PAYING SPORTING WRITER’S REVIEW. LONDON, December 26. Bankruptcy faces the English totalisator from which so much was expected when it was inaugurated the season before last. Among the benefits which it was hoped would follow from its installation were increased prizes. To-day, it is not paying its way on a commercial basis. The sports editor of the Daily Mail views the future of the totalisator with the greatest concern. The public, be says, is very appreciative when the machine is available, and the gross turnover of £4,000,000 in 1931 is £1,000,000 in excess of 1930, It is doubtful, however, whether 1932 will show a similar increase. • The Betting Control Board has faced its gigantic task admirably, in spite of the necessity for supplanting the allelectric machines with cheaper substitutes.

Nevertheless, the returns are too small compared with the whole turnover. Betting in Britain was estimated during examination of the betting tax prospects in 1923 at £200,000,000 a year, and, even allowing for the changing habits of the people, it is still estimated at £100,000,000. Moreover, 80 per cent, of betting is transacted outside the racecourses. The Control Board’s revenue of £400,000 a year, based on 10 per cent, of the turnover, covers operating and administrative costs, but is not sufficient for interest, capital, and depreciation. If progress does not accelerate the “ tote ” will be bankrupt. One way of restoration would be to install the machine on all the 43 greyhound race tracks. Their attendances aggregate 20,000,000 a year, which is three times the attendance on twice as many racecourses. The totalisator betting on them is nearly three times that on horse courses, and will reach £12,000,000 in 1932, in spite of the fact that only a few totalisators are equipped with all-electric apparatus. Stay-at-home bettors might be afforded 1,1 tote ” facilities which would involve the legalisation of betting offices in the cities and towns. To this there would be bitter opposition, though it is only another step on the road to the recognition of betting following that taken when the “ tote ” was legalised. The opening of ready-money offices would not create a vast new betting public; it would merely regulate the methods by which men and women illegally pass betting slips to milkmen and bookmakers' agents in 100 different guises.