Sporting Review . . AND . . LICENSED VICTUALLERS’ GAZETTE. with which is incorporated the weekly standard. Thursday, July 2, 1896 TURF GOSSIP. BETTING LAWS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 310, 2 July 1896, Page 4

Sporting Review . . AND . . LICENSED VICTUALLERS’ GAZETTE. with which is incorporated the weekly standard. Thursday, July 2, 1896 TURF GOSSIP. BETTING LAWS.

The uncertainty of the betting law, and the delightful ambiguity of the clauses relating thereto, must be adny’tted both by the ordinary racing or sporting man and those more directly affected —the bookmakers. Wha 1 appears to be wanted is an appeal to the Privy Council, so that what constitutes a “ place” for betting purposes should be decided once and for all. It will also be admitted that the betting laws, or the Gaming and Lotteries Act, is simply absurd in its bearing in some directions. For instance, a road or a street is a “ place,” but a private lane is not, that is according to New South Wales law. We have a common observance of the law in New Zealand in this way, that bets or wagers

must not be registered or recorded in a “ place”— i.e ,in an office, shop, or other similar place. Then there is the oldfashioned idea of “ standing on a box every boy in the street knows that is not allowed. Then, again, a man may not stand at one particular lamp-post, let us say, and lay wagers ; yet by moving > about he may book as many as he can get hold of. Probably, the local stipendiary magistrate may define what a “ place” is in connection with certain cases to be heard next week, in which the betting law is said to have been infringed. But with all due respect to the knowledge of our local magistrate, who, we are well aware, is well versed in legal knowledge, there is no finality to any judgment he may give, as it does not follow that such judgment is to be accepted as a precedent by other magistrates ; therefore the position is a very unsettled one. The New Zealand Gaming and Lotteries Act does not mince matters much in connection with our system of betting, but it does not define what is a “ place.”. The law, too, in New South Wales is of the two kinds sort —one for the rich and one for the poor—and the following particulars bearing on the subject, which we take from “ Delaware’s” notes in the Sydney Truth, will cause many to wonder how the law is administered in that part of "the world. Truth takes the following par; from the Sydney Herald, and then follows up with comments, and particulars such as have come under “Delaware’s” notice: —“ The Minister for Justice, in answer to Mr Affleck, who asked the reason why betting men outside the Kensington Racecourse were prosecuted and fined, and no notice taken of those inside the grounds, both portions being Crown lands, said that he was informed by the Inspector-General of Police that the betting carried on inside the race grounds was not under such circumstances as the law would reach, there being no erection used coming within the definition <>f the Act as a ‘ place, ’ etc. — Herald." So the poor broken outsider, who has been busted by six days’ racing a week, comes within the definition of the Act, and because he hasn’t the wherewithal to gain admission, and have a bet when he gets there, he is amenable to the law, whilst his more favoured brother, who somehow manages to pay the admission tariff, escapes. I have made some enquiries and observations regarding this outside evil, as it is called by those interested, and have concluded that not one in twenty stays outside from choice, but through their inability to pay. Racing has got a thorough hold of them, and whilst there is a meeting they will scrape up their pence and have a bit with a few small bookmakers, who would do business outside the gates of—Paradise. This class of race-goer has been created by the proprietary octopus, and, like gamblers, will sit around and watch others bet, even though they cannot do so themselves. I have noticed very many women outside the gates. Some of them, no doubt, prefer to stay outside to going in the inside and mixing with the Aspasias and extremely frisky women-punters who parade under the protection of a marriage certificate. However, many women stay outside and bet in pennies., because they are like the majority of the outs iders —unable to pass the turnstiles. My correspondent higher up has shown that Canterbury demands 3s to go in. On Wednesday about 500 people were congregated outside Canterbury gates, and many of them told me they would pay a shilling to go on the flat if they were allowed to bet, but the proprietary will not allow them to bet, unless they pay 2s extra. The police, of course, have been introduced, and assistod by the hired racecourse cop, ‘chivvy ’ these unfortunates about, much in the same arbitrary way that Bucket ‘ chivvied ’ Jo. The other day they went to extremes — no doubt they were inspired by the racecourse proprietors—to arrest an outsider for not having sufficient means of support, and when the big flat-footed' ‘ Guardian* of his own interests went intq the box he said. ‘ he didn’t know whether the prisoner had sufficient means of support.’ . . . These poor people have; as much right on the road as Mr tteid (Premier) or his supine colleague, Mr Gould. . . . These people are children of circumstance, and their present poverty can well be laid at the door of y racecourse proprietors and their friends the Government.” ,