BETTING AND BOOKMAKERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1930, Page 8

BETTING AND BOOKMAKERS.

What must be one of the most astounding magisterial utterances ever heard in the Dominion was made on Monday by Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., who had before him in the Police Coui-t at Wellington two men who had admitted bookmaking. "I think,” Mr. Woodward is reported to have said, "I should accept the sentence imposed by the Sll- - Court as an indication that this court should treat the offences not merely as a source of revenue for the country, but that the law intends this offence shall cease.” This is tantamount to an admission that up till now the court over which Mr. Woodward presides has been content to permit bookmakers io break the law provided they contributed by means of fines to the revenue of the Stale, and a more startling admission it would be impossible to imagine. Before a convicted bookmaker was sentenced to imprisonment in the Supreme Court at Wellington last week his counsel urged that he was not an operator on a large scale, and claimed in effect that the law was not impartially administered in that the “big men” were never apprehended.' Tho- natural reply of the Chief Justice to this observation was that there could be no suggestion of discrimination of the law, but the big bookmaker was very hard to catch. Yet one might be pardoned for wondering why the big man, the ramifications of whoso illegal business must spread over a wide area, should be any harder to catch than the small man working in a circumscribed area, unless it is that the big man can afford to maintain a staff of bodyguards and detectives for his own protection and they are able to outwit the representatives of the law. At any rate it is common knowledge that every centre in the Dominion has its big operators, who are never caught, while the smaller fry arc rounded up from time to time in order that they may be invited to “contribute to the revenue.” And. if the authorities have regarded, these law-breakers as a source of revenue it must have been apparent to them that after each conviction a bookmaker would have had to redouble his illegal efforts in order to pay his fine. If Air. Woodward’s utterance is to be accepted as evidence of a revision of the official attitude —evidence that is supported by the announcement that the Post Office has cut off certain telephones in ton —there is reason .to hope that at last a genuine effort will be made to stamp out an illegal business. The natural corollary to that effort would be the removal of the restrictions now operating against the totalisator. If Parliament will pass the simple legislation necessary to permit the telegraphing of money to the totalisator and the publication of dividends it will'niateri-’ ally assist the campaign against the bookmakers.