WITHIN THE LAW.

Otago Witness, Issue 3772, 29 June 1926, Page 57

WITHIN THE LAW.

AUCKLAND, June 25. “It seems to me that the games have just that degree of skill that takes them out of the Act,” said Mr J. W. Poynton, S.M., in the Police Court when he dismissed the charges brought by the police against Maurice Darling,Frank Dalyall and James M‘CorkiDgdale, showmen, who had stalls at the Winter Show, the three being charged with playing in a public place a game of chance known as ‘‘box ball,” and M‘Corkindale being further charged with playing “ski-allev.” another game of chance. The defence was that the games were ones of skill, and not of chance. After describing in detail the manner in which the games were played, the Magistrate continued: “The law as to such games is unsatisfactory. One lot of decisions rules that any game with skill m it, however small, is not a game oi chance, and another equally weighty that even if there is skill in the game, if the element of chance enters largely into it, it is not a game of skill. In both these games the skill to be possibly acquired is small. A tall man with long arms in playing “box ball” may reach to within a few inches of the edge of the holes, and with a little practice should be able to drop the ball into any desired pocket, while a short person, or a child, is at a serious disadvantage in this respect. His eyes, too, being low he would have difficulty in seeing the numbers of the pockets 1 “ski-alley” there is also very little skill. At the top of the table, where the ball drops over the edge of the incliro and into the pockets, the green baize is thicker than in the other parts o r the table, and this tends to force the ball back. In such a case another throw of a ball is granted. A player would plav with just sufficient force to send the ball over the edge, and with practice would acquire a certain skill in placing the balls into selected holes, but not much. If the law is to be altered, and it certainly should be in the interests of our children, the test ought to be not as at present: “Is there any skill in the game if played by practised players,” but: “Is it a game of chance to those who indulge in it, and from whose pockets the funds are extracted to keep it going?” The Magistrate concluded with the words of Mr Justice Edwards regarding a car which he tried: “It is a species of amusement designed to extract small sums of money from the pockets of the foolish, principally the young and foolish, who are visitors to racecourses and other places of public amusement. It does more than empty their pockets ; it innoculates such foolish persons and children with the fever of gambling—a vice already too prevalent in the community.”