HORSE RACING

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 34, 10 February 1933, Page 13

HORSE RACING

AN ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY

NEED FOR BOOKMAKERS

. In the opinion of the Dominion Sportsmen's Association, an organisation whkh desires to have bookmakers licensed, to attempt to continue horse racing under the present conditions is suicidal. This statement is contained in evidence which was tendered to the Statutes Revision Committee, when Mr. H. T. Armstrong's Bill to legalise bookmaking was under consideration. "We are firmly of the opinion that the majority of owners desire the bookmaker with whom to wager and that his presence on the course will popularise rating with those who have ceased to own horses, with those owners who are now struggling to make ends meet, and with those ever-growing numbers who are leaving our shores to race iv Australia," states the evidence.

It was pointed out by the association that stakes have dwindled so much iv recent years that at the present time the stakes given in many cases will not pay the cost of taking a horse to a meeting. If the whole of the stakes given last year were divided equally amongst all the horses which were in training, each horse would show a considerable loss.

The association claimed that racing was providing a living for 10,000 peoplu and tho country could not afford to let racing cease. The racing clubs must have additional revenue to carry on. Two sources of revenue had been suggested. One was to make all post offices agents for the totalisator and permit the public to wiro money and instructions direct to any racecourse. The other course was to legalise the bookmaker and take a tax from him. The first course was impracticable, and the second, besides being impracticable, was impossible, because: (1) An owner could get the best price from the bookmaker and know exactly hoy,- much he was getting, or if the price quoted did not ?Sl tj Cc £ oula invest on the totalisator; (J) the bookmaker would wager on the first horso only on the course and m) would not interfere to any appreciable extent with the totalisator returns if the machine paid two or three dividends; (3) the course fees paid by the bookmakers would more than compensate for any probable loss of totalisator revenue.

The people on whose behalf 1 am appearing have no wish, to break the law," said an official of the association to the Committee, "but would assist in upholding it if given a status, and I am certain that if such! a thing came to be, it would be for tho benefit of the Government, tho racing clubs, the breeders, and tho vast number employed in the racing industry." .