UNLICENSED “BOOKIES”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 548, 28 December 1928, Page 14

UNLICENSED “BOOKIES”

LONDON EXCISE OFFICERS MAKE A FIND SEVEN MONTHS’ PROFIT. £1.200 Surprising discoveries alleged to have been made by excise officers in a locked rooms were referred to at Marlborough Street in support of the prosecution of Harry Nyman, of Culworth Street, St. John’s Wood, and his brother, Isidore, or Issy, Nyman, of Edgeware Road. The two were summoned for failing to make weekly bookmaking returns, and for failing to record bets, and it was alleged that Isidore Nyman carried on the business of a bookmaker without a certificate. According to Mr. Harrington, prosecuting, Isidore—who said he was Jack Jacobs —was busy accepting bets over the telephone when excise officers paid a surprise visit to the premises in Charlbert Street, St. John’s Wood. In the room the officers found a number of slips in a box and also a mutilated weekly statement. Isidore could give no explanation of them. Noticing that the door of one of the rooms was locked, the officers went outside, and with the aid of a ladder climbed through the window. Harry Nyman had said the place was empty, but on the table were a number of slips. The brothers declared the slips belonged to other bookmakers, and had been brought in to be added up. In a locked cupboard were a large number of other slips, a diary going back to January, a number of telegrams addressed to “Newman,” and several weekly statements in that name. It was thought that Newman was Harry Nyman. None of the bets had been entered up. The diary showed the following transactions in the seven months, January to July: £13,752 Is 6d received as stakes. £12,558 2s 7d paid out. £1,223 18s lid gross profit. From the weekly statements, which, remarked Mr. Harrington, seemed to be a different part of the business, it appeared that £516 15s had been taken in a -week as stakes. It was estimated that thh revenue had lost something between £6OO and £9OO between January and July last. Mr. Eustace Fulton, defending, stated that defendants carried on only a small business themselves. The premises were too large for them, and they had foolishly allowed other bookmakers to use them. Mr. Bingley, magistrate, pointed out that the brothers were each liable to penalties amounting to £l,lOO. He fined them each £BO. and imposed a penalty of £5 on Isidore Nyman for conducting business as an uncertificated bookmaker.