BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4,1950 A TOTALISATOR WANTED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 91, 4 September 1950, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4,1950 A TOTALISATOR WANTED

The public generally, will support the efforts of the Whakatane Racing Club to secure a totalisator permit. Non-totalisator race meetings are usually associated with "back-blocks." One finds them

in such places as the underpopulated districts of Central Otago, where they provide picnic outings for families —where, indeed, they retain the picturesque features of the pioneering days. Whakatane has long passed that stage in its growth. In such districts as this, where there is an obvious demand for substantial race meetings, the nontotalisator meeting has undesirable aspects. Forgone thing; it carries an open invitation to illegality in the form of book-

making. Betting is not looked on as desirable even by those who bet. Indeed gambling of all sorts j forms far too big a part of our national life. Nevertheless, being so big a factor in our way of living, it must be accepted ' and carried out with as much control by law as is reasonably ', possible. , The Racing Commission, in a ' general/sense rightly, is not in I favour of further totalisator! meetings. Whakatane, however,! is so placed geographically that a local meeting gives residents their only opportunity of attendance at such a function. It I must be admitted that, desirable or not, gambling is what attracts most people to a racecourse. > All in! all, the Whakatane Rac-1 ing Club should be granted a totalisator permit. j