Investors queue at the totalisator at the Dunedin Jockey
Club's autumn race meeting at Wingatui. Photo from Otago
Witness, 2.3.1910; prints available from otagoimages.co.nz.
No observant person can have any reasonable doubt that
there exists a good deal of justification for such a resolution
as that passed by the Methodist Conference with reference to
the prevalence of gambling and betting in New Zealand.
The resolution gives the Government credit for the intention
that existed at the back of the anti-gambling legislation of
recent date, but affirms, amongst other things, that the
bookmaker has become a greater evil than ever.
It must be recognised that the attempt to curtail the betting
mania by confining it to the racecourse and by giving the
bookmaker a legal footing at race meetings has been
productive in only a very inconspicuous degree of beneficial
results.
But a Government which directly encourages betting itself by
its protection of the totalisator and its participation in
the proceeds from the "machine" is not advantageously placed
when it seeks to regulate the business of others that are
engaged in gambling pursuits.
It is not without reason that the Methodist Conference
complains with reference to the bookmaker.
Whoever does not see plainly enough that street betting has
by no means been abolished in our larger centres of
population is singularly blind.
Those who carry on the practice are possibly more circumspect
than formerly in the way they conduct operations, but the
results are just as unfortunate.
Nobody imagines that the bookmaker haunts the most
largely-frequented parts of the city just to admire a view
which he does not enhance, and the methods by which the
efforts of the police to obtain convictions for street
betting have often been nullified are well understood.
The bookmaker haunts the street corner simply to meet with
his clients, and the hotel is a popular place of sanctuary
for the recording of bets.
This is very much a case of a distinction without a
difference, and it is clear that the spirit of the law is not
being observed, and that the law itself is not sufficiently
effective to cope with the betting nuisance.
The bookmaker continues to illustrate the futility of the
legislative attempts to confine his operations to the
racecourse, where he has official recognition, for this very
recognition paves the way for him elsewhere.
But these results are only, after all, on a level with the
inconsistencies of our legislation on this question.
Obviously there is a position calling for measures of reform,
and it becomes a question of what direction these should
take.
The fact may be recalled that, when he was interviewed last
session by a deputation from the Anti-Gambling League, Sir
Joseph Ward indicated that he was quite prepared to recommend
that the voice of the people should be taken with reference
to both the totalisator and the bookmaker.
When the public is given the opportunity we shall not be
surprised to find it according each a short shrift. - ODT,
3.3.1910.
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