POST OFFICE SCANDAL

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1929, Page 3

POST OFFICE SCANDAL

SECRET TELEPHONES BETS OVER THE COUNTER. SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES. Sydney, July 12. Sensational disclosures have followed recent investigations by the PostmasterGeneral’s Department into the operations of starting-price bookmakers in Sydney and suburbs. ’The latest move by the department was the dismissal this week of three G.P.O. employees, who, it is alleged by the department, have been operating as registered bookmakers on various racecourses in the metropolitan area. Twenty other G.P.O. employees, also alleged to have been bookmakers, are awaiting the deliberations of the departmental .inquiry committee. It was only recently that high officials gained an idea of the vast network .of starting-price bookmakers which the Postmaster - General’s Department was supporting almost free of cost. A series of circumstances connected with the dismissal of an employee some months ago disclosed that a number of offices in the city were connected with racecourse ’phones by a system of secret varing which had been carried out by a i.ftmber of G.P.O. mechanics and switchboard attendants. From these. offices in the city,' starting price bookmakers could, by simply lifting their receivers, be connected to the official box from where the progress of each race is called for the Press and officials.

All betting changes and post positions, and the running during the race was obtained by the starting-price bookmakers in the fity through these secret ’phones, and extensive betting businesses were carried out, in consequence. It was not until a dispute arose between a Postal Department employee and one of the starting-price bookmakers that the departmental heads discovered the ramifications of the system. It was disclosed then that the secret wiring system had been in operation for several years and that the offices to which the ’phones had been connected had not paid for or made any application for the installation of these ’phones. EVEN MAIL COUNTERS USED. Hints and disclosures made at these departmental inquiries led to still further investigations by the deputy-Post-master-General (Mr. J. W. Kitto) and it has since been established, he said, this week, that even the mail counters of the G.P.O. have been used as start-ing-price betting depots. Several em- | ployees in the stamp-selling department, it was discovered, spent the greater part of their time on race days in taking bets under cover of legitimate business. Up to 100 officers of the Department have been transferred recently to the country and the three dismissals from the services this week are said to be the crowning effort of the departmental heads to rid the G.P.O. of the startingprice betting evil. Public service regulations are emphatically against civil servants taking part in any other business outside the department in which they already are employed. The three postal employees dismissed were registered by the Australian Jockey Club to bet on the flat at Randwick and Warwick Farm. ENORMOUS VOLUME OF BETS. Starting-price betting has reached enormous proportions in New South Wales, and in fact all over Australia. Each week police make raids on various shops and houses where operations, are carried on. In a case at North Sydney recently the police during a raid discovered a book in which 2500 bets were made on races for one day alone. The amounts invested by the bettors ranged from one shilling to £2 10s. They discovered an elaborate wireless installation capable of listening-in. to any station in the Commonwealth.

Many of the big city starting-price bookmakers have offices elaborately fitted up with lounge chairs and smoking rooms where clients after making their bet may wait for the result of the races, usually received either through a radio set or by ’phone. Many smaller agents abound throughout the suburbs and it is an easy matter to make a bet on any horse in the State.