CHANCE OR SKILL?

Wairarapa Age, 10 November 1927, Page 5

CHANCE OR SKILL?

A SPORTING COMPETITION. MAGISTRATE’S DECISION. DUNEDIN, November 9. Stating that in Eis opinion a measure of skill was required, in the solving of a racing picture puzzle, Mr J. R. Bartholomew S.M., dismissed an infnrmation against a publisher, Fran eta Joseph Haywood in a reserved judgment delivered at the City Police Count this morning. The case was one which Was brought by the police following the publication of a picture pizzle in a sporting paper. Haywood was charged witli commencing a scheme whefeby money was competed for by a mode of ants scheme was known as ' l 'Sporting Pictures, fi said the Magistrate in givjudgment. * 1 Each of the pictures represented the name of a racehorse, and only the names of horses found in the “New Zealand Turf Register” and “New Zealand Referee” were represented. A prize of £lO was provided, and the entry fee was a shilling. The conditions stated that there, was only one possible solution for each picture, and therefore only one name allowed for each sealed solution deposited with the defendant’s solicitor.” The present case appeared to the Magistrate to be covered by the decision in >Scott v the Director of Public Prosecution in 1914, in which Judge Lush stated: “The answer appeals no aoubt only to the taste or fancy of the person who is to adjudicate, and there was an element of chance in that sense in the competitions, but that does not make the adjudication a mere determination by chance and nothing but chance. It appears to me that a decision according to honest taste (P’ farcy is not a decision by chance and nothing else. . . The distinction is very plain between the person who buys a ticket for a lottery and the person who competes even in a scheme like this.” After citing other opinions, the Magistrate said that the defendant, in his opinion, had not committed an offence.—(P.A.).