BETTING IN THE DOMAIN.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 950, 13 March 1897, Page 2

BETTING IN THE DOMAIN.

The Auckland Amateur Athletic Club is Touchy.

The young men of the Auckland Amatenr Athletic Olnb are uncommonly sore just now against the committee of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association. They feel that an insult has been levelled at them by a resolution which the present committee recently passed, directing the Auckland Amatenr Athletic Club to pat down betting at future meetings of the club. The Amateur Athletes interpret this as meaning that betting has been prevalent at recent meetings. Also, they argue that if there has been betting — and they hold there has not — then they have done their best to suppress it. This is a bit of Irish reasoning, but amateur athletics and logic don't always go hand-in-hand.

The Observer agreeß with the parent committee, and doesn't sympathise with the Auckland Amateur Athletes worth a cent. Betting was prevelent to a discreditable extent at the recent Athletic Championship Meeting in Auckland, and betting has been prevalent to a discreditable extent at every recent meeting of the Club. Also, it is exercising a big influence in the Club contests, and by its loudmouthed assertiveness is disgusting the better class of people who were wont' to take their families to the occasional gatherings of the Club, and is lowering the statu3 of amateur athletic sport in Auckland altogether. The only wonder is, that the Auckland Amateur Athletic Clnb should profess ignorance of it. The thing is only too patent to everyone else.

At the upper corner of the pavilion/ on the occasion of the recent N.Z.A.A.A.. Championship Meeting, there was gathered together the worst crowd of professional bettors we have ever seen-off a racecourse. We Bay 'off a racecourse' advisedly, because the majority of these fellows were not bookmakers, they would never be licensed aa, bookmakers, and they would not be allowed on any respectable racecourse in this part of the colony. They were openly soliciting bets, in loud voice, and nobody connected or disconnected with the Amateur Athletic Club made any attempt to stop them. This, too, in the face of the fact that a by-law was passed by the City Council some time ago prohibiting betting on the Domain.

The Auckland Amateur Athletic Club had better pocket the so-called insult from the parent committee and say nothing. They deserve the reprimand that they got. This betting is affecting the attendance at their sports, it is lowering the moral tone of their members, and it is discreditable to the officers of the society, even as it is to the police authorities of the city. Open betting is strictly vetoed at the football matches at Potter's Paddock. It is too low for football. Then why allow it to dominate and discredit amateur atheletic sports to the extent it is doing ?