The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1950 AN INTERESTING VIEW OF GAMBLING

Wanganui Chronicle, 22 November 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1950 AN INTERESTING VIEW OF GAMBLING

the Social and Industrial Commission of the Church of England reported that gambling is permissible as an amusement but whenever it ceased to be an amusement it became indefensible and indeed dangerous, it may have been actuated by one of two ideas. The first of these was that a small piece of fun which involved the element of gambling was not to be regarded ns an intolerable sin: the second idea may have been that the small bet was permissible when it was indulged in for fun but that when gambling was resorted to for the purpose of gain it became indefensible. The quantitive test of gambling is not available, for what is a small sum for one man is a large sum for another man. A rich man may wager large sums simply because to lose them will not cause him to alter his way of life. But in doing this he sets the atmosphere of the community in which he lives and that atmosphere affects men who are poorer than himself and they are by social pressure brought into gambling beyond their ability to lose. To say that the first man did no harm because he did not do other than amuse himself is simply begging the question. It ignores man’s social responsibilities. While it is necessary to avoid making life miserable by a continuous microscopic examination of the motives of each and every action it is also desirable to appreciate the fact that gambling is a source of evil which eats like a canker into the body politic. How deep it can eat is evidenced by the corruption attached not to the systems which cater for large bets but for those which eater for the smallest of bets. It is not in the country club where large bets are laid that America finds its major source of corrupting influences but in the dime machines which cater for the small amusement gambling which the Social and Industrial Commission of the Church of England seemingly condones. The man who proclaimed himself to be the ‘’king of the slots” is known as Kingpin Costello. He lives in Manhatten and has a weekend home on Long Island. He admits to owning a few gaming houses where such things are legal but his major racket is the placing of slot machines in convenient places for decent American citizens to drop in dimes which they can easily afford to lose so that they can buy a little amusement. But what is at the back of that machine? What organisation places it there and keeps it there. Kingpin Costello’s career is such that he is now called the King of America’s underworld. Mayor La Guardia of New York called him the world’s biggest and most corrupt gambler. liovernor Thomas K. Dewey says: "He is a gangster.” Federal Narcotic Agents assert that he dominates the Unione Sicilian, the ‘modern Mafia’ which they say is America’s biggest peddler of illegal drugs. The California Commission on Organised Crime reported that Costello was “the present head of the great underworld organisation, with headquarters in New York, which is called by its own members ‘The Combination.’ The so-called ‘Murder Inc.,’ ” the Commission said “is the enforcement branch of this organisation.” The foundation of this Empire of Crime is the slot machine provided for the innocent amusement of the decent American citizen who plays the machine for a dime “hist for fun.” J

This slot-machine organisation spreads right throughout America. The California Crime Commission estimates that it grosses no Jess than two thousand million dollars a year. Tn one year, Costello’s share was said to have been .33 million dollars. Leave aside what goes to Kingpin Costello where does the other money go? It goes into the corruption r.f police and public service, to corrupting some politicians and to silencing others. It spreads out into the nation a measure of social poison, the end of which is not to be discerned. But enough is discerned to reveal that the whole structure of the American community is threatened by the underworld organisers of the small bet'for amusement. It is amazing that so important a body as the Social and Industrial Commission of the Church of England should be is evidently unaware of the worked out results of the views of an important section of its members.

The extension of gambling facilities in New Zealand is in keeping with this urge to provide the small amusement better with easy opportunities for indulging this vice. By providing a State blessed channel for small betting it is assumed that the corrupting influence of gambling will be checked. How this can be sustained m the face of the experience of the recent Commission on Gambling cannot be even guessed at for it defies logic. The bookmakers’ business has been illegal in New Zealand for decades. Like the American slot machine racket the gambling racket in New Zealand is organised on a Dominion-wide basis. It is able not only to keep in touch with its members by publicly-owned telephone day by day and week by week, but unregistered telephones are obtainable and more than one telephone per subscriber can be provided when ordinary users are denied such publicly-owned facilities. Further, when the commission was sitting the bookmaking interests had their own counsel representing their interests and providing publicly figures concerning illegal gambling which put legalised gambling into the shadows. Yet, notwithstanding this amazing self-revelation of organised illegal activities what has been done to suppress this network? ? The sporadic fining and on rare occasions the imprisonment of bookmakers cannot be regarded as an activity worthy of the occasion. What has prevented appropriate action being taken against this organised racket? Let every man supply his own answer, but certain it is that so widespread an illegal activity using State-owned facilities could not have been built up and, having been built up, could not have been sustained, had there not been connivance and more on the State’s side of the fence.