THE LAW AND THE BOOKMAKER

Otago Witness, Issue 4041, 25 August 1931, Page 54

THE LAW AND THE BOOKMAKER

COMMENTS BY CHIEF JUSTICE

DISAGREEMENT EXPRESSED. AUCKLAND, August 17. Reference to the recent comments made by the Chief Justice (Mr Justice Myers) in Wellington on the subject of bookmaking was made by Mr E. W. Alison, M.L.C., in his presidential address at the Takapuna Jockey Club’s annual meeting to-day.

Mr Alison said he did not agree with the Chief Justice’s view that bookmaking could be stopped if the offenders were imprisoned instead of fined. Imprisonment might minimise bookmaking, but would not stop it. ItTiad been illegal for 22 years, and for 11 years offenders had been liable to imprisonment. Further, betting with a bookmaker was forbidden by the Laws of Racing, yet there was a defiance of the law, not only by book-

makers but by a large number of racing people, who in all other respects were strictly law-abiding. Mr Alison strongly advocated the legalising of telegraphing bets, the publication of dividends, and the use of a double totalisator, and asserted that the reason why these things had not been legalised could only be the-far-reaching influence of the bookmakers. ’