LAYING TOTALISATOR ODDS,

Otago Witness, 5 December 1900, Page 40

LAYING TOTALISATOR ODDS,

The position in regard to this awkward ques- j tion is very aptly put by the Canterbury , Times in an article which runs thus: If the laying of totalisator odds, which is an offence , •by Act of Parliament, is to be effectively dealt i with, it would seem as if either some quali- I fication or some extension of the existing law >vere a necessary precedent. The difficulty under which the police at present labour, as was instanced in the Christchurch Magistrate's Court last week, is one of jibbing wit- I Messes. It is a perennial difficulty, too, and ' the little farce runs its certain round with a monotony of regulation and detail that would foe amusing were it not so pointedly a crying testimony to the chronic ineptihide of our {legislators to frame restrictions calculated ito suppress the gambling evil. The police , come into the court with a case, armed apparently at all points — they lead their horse, proudly caprisoned and prancing, to the wa- . •ter's brink, but they cannot make him drink. 'The technical preliminaries are proved, the , ■ground cleared, and the principal witness called, only to baulk at the crucial point, with j „'the persistent wisdom of Balaam's ass," on the | ground that his evidence may tend to incrimi- j oiate himself. It is a lion by the way, which j the- police have grown to fearfully anticipate, f and, if we may mix the metaphor, it forms an , insuperable cul de sac. Unfortunately, the t 'objection i 3 beyond all argument a proper "one. "The Gaming Act of 1894-" makes it as "much an offence to receive totalizator odds as ( "to lay them. Hie section of the Act is as all-enfolding as the English language can make ■ it, for it stipulates absolutely, inter alia, that any person who "makes any .contract or bargain of any kind to pay or receive money upon an event determined or to be determined by the result of the working of the totalisator on any horse race shall be guilty of aa ©Seaw."

There are, indeed, records of recent convictions under the section. As a case in point, we recall an information laid against a bookmaker some two months ago, after the North Otago Spring meeting, charging him with betting totalisator odds. A witness who had made a statement to the police privately, and had received a personal assurance that no action would be taken against himself, saw fit to reconsider his position in the interval, after a- curiously convincing interview with the accused's counsel, and baulked at the usual place. The case, of course, fell through. The police thereupon, promptly laid an information against their hostile witness for receiving totalisator odds, and, befogged as to his position, the recalcitrant one elected to give evidence on his own behalf, with the restilt that under severe cross-examination admissions were wrung from him ensuring his being convicted and fined. The anomaly is a curious one — A being adjudged not to have laid totalisator odds to B, whilst B was convicted of having taktsn such odds from A. Still, an anomaly at law is not necessarily one in fact. But that is Kipling's "other story," and the case is useful illustratively only as evidencing the legitimacy of the plea of privilege, although there is something more than a suspicion that in a majority of cases it is urged by arrangement with the defence. In making Peter equally liable with Paul, and prescribing the goose's sauce to be served with the gander, it would seem as if the vaulting ambition of our Legislature had indeed o'er-leai-ed itself, and fallen on the other side. To ma>e the Act effective, it is necessary either to withdraw the statutory reproach attaching to receiving totalisator odds, on the principle of cutting at the root to kill the branches; or, what is infinitely preferable, to re-enact the sections of the original "Gaming and Lotteries Act of 1881," conferring protection upon witnesses.