TAX THE BILLIARD SALOONS
Sir,—At the present time (.hero is a very strong agitation in favour of economy, both in public and private life, and many things are proposed lo effect, it—publichouses lo be closed at 6 o'clock, racing to bo diminished, etc. But thero is a form of gambling existing to an onormous extent in New Zealand which to my mind is almost if not quite as bad as racing and the lolalisator, and. it seems lo ho' altogether overlooked, t mean' tho public billiard tablet!. Everywhere you go, iii big towns, little towns, and even" in .hamlets with perhaps uot one hundred, inhabitants you find' them, and the amount of money in the aggregate that, is gambled and wasted over them must bo enormous, and the great
waste of valuable time, especially daytime, lost by players and spectators is deplorable. I will instance the little town 1 am now writing from. Tho population is 2085, and in it there, are eight public billiard rooms and fourteen tables. Theso rooms aro opon for play fourteen hours each day for three hundred days in the year. And suppose there is only £3 per day—and I am convinced there is much more—gambled over each on the average, (be gross sum would be -C12.M10, and that in a. placo little more than a village. A. few years ago the Supreme. Court adjudged that,, tho different games of pool and snooker played on billiard tables were games of skill and were not illegal; since then, gambling on tho tables has increased enormously, and is carried on openly: Now if billiard gambling is loleratcd, why should it not bo taxed as tho totalisntor gambling is? The bil-liard-lablo liconso foo is. 1 think, a paltry two or three pounds per annum, wliich goes to the local body. I consider that another fee of lon, fifteen, or oven twenty pounds, to go to the revenuo of tho country, could bo very well imposed, and I feel confident that people would be astonished at tho large number of thorn that would pity even twenty pounds. I would open the eyes of (lie public to Iho evil. Billiard tables in hotels and olubs should not bo overlooked, especially those in working men's clubs. The latter I look upon as an unmitigated evil. A hea.vy tax on tables would not kill the evil; it might mitigate it. To kill it, gambling in any .form on billiard tables would require to bo made illegal, and pnnishablo under the Gaming Act, making tho owner of the table and players equally culpable.— I am, etc.,
WAR ECONOMIST. Hawko'sßay, July 'JO, 1917.
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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3143, 23 July 1917, Page 7
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439TAX THE BILLIARD SALOONS Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3143, 23 July 1917, Page 7
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