LAYING TOTE ODDS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume X, Issue 476, 7 September 1899, Page 16

LAYING TOTE ODDS.

Our Wellington correspondent writes : —A decision was given by Mr Justice Edwards last week which quashes the conviction of Solomon Lewis in the Lower Court for laying tote odds here a while back. Lewis appealed against the magistrate’s decision. The facts of the case, as stated by Mr Meyers, who opposed the appeal, were that the appellant was convicted under Section 4 of the Gaming and Lotteries Amendment Act, 1894, which provides that any person making or entering into a bet the result of which was dependent on the working of the totalisator should be deemed to be guilty of an offence, and liable to three months’ imprisonment or a fine not exceed£2o. Defendant was sentenced to two months imprisonment The proceedings against a number of persons, including the appellant, arose out of the agitation regarding an alleged public nuisance created in Willis Street by a certain class of betting men. On March 17 last Probationary Constables Kidd and McCarthy were sent out to obtain evidence against some men suspected ,of committing offences under the particular section of the Act referred to. It was admitted that the defendant was a bookmaker, but it was denied that the bets which he made were dependent on the working of the totalisator. Lewis said that his transactions were on the principle of what were known as “ straight-out odds.” Both the constables named made bets of 5s with accused on a particular race, Kidd betting on the horse Rosella running at Hastings. At the time the bet was made nothing was said about the odds, but it was submitted by counsel for the prosecution that there could only be one inference—that the bet was on totalisator odds. Rosella won,

paying a dividend of £4 2s, so that Constable Kidd ought to have got a fourth as his proportion on the bet he had made. When the constables again met the accused, he offered Kidd £1 5s instead of £1 Os 6d, and said he was not laying tote odds, and was not paying out. tote odds. That was the contention of the defence—that it had not been shown that tote odds were laid. Mr Wilford contended that the magistrate’s decision was not consistent with the evidence. The evidence of the police was not conclusive, and there was nothing more against his client than the inference that he had been laying tote odds. He denied that he had offered tote odds, and had declined to pay the odds. His Honor, in giving judgment, said the evidence of the constables showed that it had not been specifically stated or agreed that the bets they laid with the aucused were totalisator odds. Tbe evidence of Mr H. M. Lyon (called as an expert) was that the mere iact <f laying the wager might lead him to infer that accused was laying tote odds, yet it did not necessarily follow that it was so Under such circumstances, and seeing that it was a criminal offence, His Honor did not think a man ought to be sent to prison upon such evidence. Though in all probability the inference of fact had been correctly drawn by the magistrate, it did not follow that such inferonce should be acted upon in convicting, because it was quite probable the inference was incorrect. The offence ought to be clearly proved, and in His Honor’s opinion it bad not been sufficiently proved in this case. To him it was plain that no man ought to be sent to prison upon an inference drawn from the evidence of witnesses who admitted that a contrary might also have been drawn. The appeal was therefore allowed, but costs were disallowed, His Honor stating that “ he had not the least sympathy in the world ” with such cases.