BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1948 GAMING COMMISSION’S REPORT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 11, 9 January 1948, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1948 GAMING COMMISSION’S REPORT

In a comprehensive report covering 204 sheets of foolscap, the Gaming Commission has surveyed all forms of gambling in New Zealand. Members of the Commission, Mr Justice Finlay (Chairman), Messrs. W. H. Freeman S.M. and J. W. Heenan, Un-der-Secretary for Internal Affairs, have been thorough and the report is a remarkably concise and constructive document. Its reception has been mixed. As is right in view of the fact that horse racing and trotting engage most of the attention of the betting public, the Commission has - given those sports the greater part of its attention. It has taken the view that betting is one of those things that cannot be legislated out of existence and has moulded its suggestions with the idea of regulating in the public interest a “widespread, deeply rooted, very old and widely approbated propensity.” Bookmaking it recognises as a problem, but, far from taking the view one often hears expressed in many quarters that the cure would be to legalise and license the bookmakers, the Commission censures illegal betting and suggests intensified and sustained police action. However, it recommends legal off-the-course betting, controlled by> the Racing and Trotting Conferences, and also says that Racing Clubs should once more be authorised to receive totalisator investments by telegram or by letter. Present wholesale illegal off-the-course betting is bringing the law into disrepute, says the report. It recommends the setting up of a Racing Advisory Board to advise the Minister of Internal Affairs on all racing and trotting problems. It is pleasing to note the healthful view the Commission takes concerning publicity, when it says the public should be told in an open and public way all that is to be told concerning horses and their form, and that newspaper tipping should be permitted, as also should be the publication of dividends.

It is difficult to understand what useful purpose the present laws restricting publication of tips and dividends hope to achieve. Horses “likely to be fancied” and dividends “bordering three score” are subterfuges most newspaper readers would gladly trade for more straightforward information. After all, if the thousands who throng the racecourses have access to the dividend figures, where is the possible harm in informing the rest of the public? A suggested increase in the number of days for galloping races in New Zealand did not receive the Commission’s sympathy, but it did recommend an increase of 19 in the trotting days, on the grounds that trotting had “outgrown the framework within which it is constrained.” Any recommendations concerning racing on week days were qualified by reference to the production situation, the Commission thereby putting first things first and indicating an opinion with which most reasonable people will agree that sport should take its proper place, and not more than its proper place, in the national scheme of things. Concerning aspects of gaming other than horse racing, the Commission had a variety of comments to make, but suggested no drastic changes in the present set-up of legal gambling. Totalisator permits for dog-rac-ing were not recommended on the ground that there were already sufficient gambling media in the country, a State lottery was not supported, and the report says no evidence was before the Commission to convince it that the extent of raffle or art union gambling permited by present laws had produced social evils.

The argument most frequently heard in favour of a State lottery is the one that considerable sums of New Zealand money go into overseas lotteries and, if the people will indulge in that kind of “flutter”, the money might as well be kept at home. Evidently the Commission did not support that view. Certainly there are few who would consider the odd half-crown spent on an art

union ticket heavy gambling, and to regard that as a social evil would be an extremely alarmist viewpoint. In brief, it can be said that, although the report will be a disappointment to some because it does not advocate the wholesale suppression of gambling and to others because it does not recommend an open field for professional gamesters, the majority of citizens will probably agree that it is a sensible, wellbalanced and constructive document dealing fully and reasonably with a very complex subject.