BETTING SHOPS IN SYDNEY

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160730, 17 August 1920, Page 7

BETTING SHOPS IN SYDNEY

HOW-THE SYSTEM IS WORKED. SYDNEY, August 4. An enormous amount of gambling goes on sub rosa in Sydney. Bets made, outside a racecourse, in this State, aro illegal, but there is probably more money passing in bets made off the racecourses than on. The betting shop evil has grown, until to-day it represents practically an open defiance of the law, and protides the police with their biggest problem and reproach. Betting shops plied their business openly in Sydney, and did a. roaring business, until 1906, when legislation closed the shops and drove the punters to the racecourses, and so the agent system came gradually into operation. There is a central office, with telephones, to which only members of the “staff” ■ .have admission. There is a large staff of agents, who have regular beats in the city and suburbs. They aro at certain places at certain times, and all the wise people desirous of betting meet them there at the nearest point of thev heat. A lew words are spoken, money passes quickly and “slithily,” and the agent walks on* 'Hie bet is booked. The money thus collected is taken to the central office, the bet is recorded, and the agent, draws his commission, generally 2s (id in the £, on the total amount brought in. These bets are all at

“‘starting’ price’’ ami the winners receive their money from the agent on his next visit. The starling price is the price slated in the sporting columns of the Sydney Morning Herald—apropos of which some strange stories might be told of attempts to “rig” the old paper’s reports. This agent system has developed in an extraordinary manner. Every corner of Sydney now apfroars to be canvassed by an army of very shrewd and not very desirable “non-pro-ducers.” Their beats now extend to factories and offices, and large sums, got together by both men and women, await them on the days of their regular call. They also act as collectors for Tattersall’s Sweeps. . Both the betting shops and the sweeps are definitely illegal, but they seem to be tolerated all round. The Post Office provides the shop with .telephones, and the sweep people with'postal sendees —and neither could exist without these facilities.

The police declare that sub rosa betting is carried out in a manner that makes it impossible of detection. But the evil has grown to that extent now' that it seems likely that the police will be forced to test their own theory in operations on a big scale against the shops. „