ILLEGAL BETTING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16801, 14 November 1928, Page 11

ILLEGAL BETTING

BOOKMAKERS AMD LAW

USE OF TELEGRAPHIC SERVICES

Under the, lading of "bookmakers and the Law/' the Cbiistchurch Press jMs editorially, in $.6 following manler J with the state of affairs whreh, exists Ivigrywbere In the Dominion : "it was reported the other day i« a briej* cable messajge from London that a "West End firm" of bookmaker* had ar. pay the %st- Office £lop,ooo a year'for 'private exclusive' terepljoW.U'ies to 6$ towns, in and Wales, Tdio lucky bookmaker of sew* Zealand are noV'tneiely'pernhtted b.iit compelled to make (he Post Office work for them for TJtey pay, as" everybody pays, for ordinaryservices, but for thV extraordinary services peHofmed ; for them every fe*?M the' Post' and Telegraph Department they "can pay nothing.' at "all ti they • are'loi'pidden' by "In w to exist. To-morrow (Friday) and the'next day ClH.'istclifrcli' will be invaded by a i whole army of them, well known'to tho, ponW arid-to 'everybody b'lsb 'who wants to know |hem, and so- lons as. they show ordlffily pi'\ideuce''they will'operate imchecked nntfl.tbe end of Carnival Week. That,'m aW'easfe/is what has happened iri'the past.* and if. there Ts. a change'this, year;' it? will ■'siYrpri.se not/ 'merely the l«#smake"re but tfu| general public. w 'The police do certainly move against the> hGoMakor "now : a'fkL again. ""l'liey prosecutM tf'wdnlan in Auckland Hie ■ other day,' the keeper of a llunlble suburbah shop; and on their''own admission a bookmaker, 'only iii a small way/ and bad hef fined "£10." '^ lP .V ,nove , f M '' against other ffVms of' gambling when there ii» not too Mmch to n,ovp against. ' About Uio same time as they woseciited woman in Auckland—-w«<i had' of'course.' broken the Jaw and earned 'her punishment, though the police helped her to earn it—they, raided n shO> in'Wellington kept by a Chinese and t sncced%J''itrfeett.inff 11 sencs of con'victioOs. lawrwas broken an'c '■ the. pdljce did'theft' fdrthai 'duly--though it $0 should nl)l them' to'do, 'and would not it'it - just: ' A/''party'of Chinese playing pakapoo are m the same positior precisely/so far as the public interest v concerned, as a; MrM 9k B™K- l; "£ W$ jng bridge, and it- i«? more persecution u r«M.'ani v ar,rest aind| fbm, one party an<i oilers:'' ■'' "■",", , 71 on thn other band, an nroplfly.outlawed' by, Legislature. Tbej are%b3 onlY deUberate of the U* f out <| the racing clubs, anc

of the Government itself 5 some of them, as the authunties well know, have defied the law so successfully that they are among the Dominion's richest men, .and the law still tolerates them. It indeed does more than tolerate them. It aids and abets them.by putting absurb restrictions on legal betting which are rigorously enforced. The prohibition of the double totalisator and pf a reasonable use of the telegraph office for betting diverts tens of -thousands of pounds into the pockets of bookmakers, [and has no justification of any kind it) public necessity. Instead of 'enriching 'Outlaws in this absurd way, the law should deal with them, as it deals with gfier recalcitrant sections of the' commimitv, and fine and punish them. Tbo ■police' administration is surely not so 'helpless as it seems to lie."