BETTING LAWS IN SYDNEY

Southland Times, Issue 23648, 25 October 1938, Page 13

BETTING LAWS IN SYDNEY

NEW REGULATIONS IN EFFECT INCREASING POPULARITY OF SPORT SYDNEY, October 14. The amendments to the Gaming and Betting Act, to prevent “off-the-course” betting, have been a major news subject in Sydney since they were put into force last week. An important decision was made this week by the seven metropolitan proprietary clubs; that is, all the clubs outside the non-proprietary Australian Jockey Club which conduct Sydney s racing. These clubs have always been opposed to starting-price betting, which, they claim, has been solely responsible for the falling-off in racing here. The clubs have always frowned on persons associated with racing who have indulged in starting-price betting, but have taken no action against such persons. Now, however, the clubs have decided to make the new Act more effective by using their powers of suspension, disqualification, or fines against owners, trainers, bookmakers, bookmakers’ clerks, or . other registered persons, who indulge in starting-price betting. , ... , The police say that judging by the five race meetings held since the new Act became operative, starting-price betting has decreased by 80 per cent. Cash betting in hotels, clubs, billiard saloons and other places has been practically eliminated. Credit betting, by means of telephones, still proceeds, but has been made harder, and both backers and bookmakers are finding difficulties, one of which is that fluctuations in the betting market, given to them before the race, are no longer available to them. Various means are still being used in attempts to get this information to the bookmakers. “Tick-tacking (the use of manual signals from the course to an outside agent) is one, but the police and the clubs have combined in efforts to stop this and it is only a matter of time before the expert signallers become known and are caught. . , ~ Agents inside the course leave after each race and telephone to their principals. Paper containing the betting prices is wrapped round a stone and thrown over the fence to a waiting confederate, or pulled through an aperture in the fence. By these and other means, betting agents are temporarily evading the provision of the Act prohibiting the dissemination of betting odds until after , the last race. This provision will need

continual policing, but it is said that it is only a matter of time before all the subterfuges becqme known and the means of leakages are blocked.. Cash operators who find it impracticable to conduct their business by telephone are seeking other methods of carrying on. Some insist on all bets being handed in before 11.30 a.m. on a race day. Others are encouraging ■“family groups” or “friendly groups, one member of which acts as agent. Groups of six or eight people meet in a private house on race afternoons, the agent collects the bets, and telephones them through in a block to the principal. . , .. Others have instituted a “memory system.” Youths are employed to call on clients in given block areas, and to memorize bets, thus obviating the necessity of passing betting slips. Many small businesses, carried on as “blinds” for cash starting-price business. will have to close down. j