The Fielding Star. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1885. Gaming and Lotteries Act

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 17, 21 July 1885, Page 2

The Fielding Star. TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1885. Gaming and Lotteries Act

Thb amended Act of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1881 has passed in the Lower House, and if it survives the ordial of the Upper House, will become law on the Ist January, 1886. It is very stringent in its provisions and will probably go far to effectually put down consultations, sweeps, bet ting, &c, in this colony. Betting houses, bookmakers, lotteries, are to be blotted off the face of the earth, for all persons concerned in betting, or gambling ©f any description may be fined fifty pounds for each offence, or, in the discretion of the Justices before whom they shall be convicted, be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two months, with or without hard labor. It is not necessary that any offence should actually be committed but the mere fact of inducing or inviting any person to make a bet, wager, sweekstake, lottery, or scheme — whatever the latter term may be made to imply — will be sufficient to draw down on the heads of the offenders all the pains and penalties of the Act. An attempt appears to* be made in the first section of the third clause of the Act to get at sweep promoters and sinners resident in other parts of the world. It says "whereby it is made to appear that any person who either in New Zealand or elsewhere by letter, circular, telegram, placard, handbill, card or advertisement, sent, exhibited, or published shall give information or advice anent any bet, sweepbtake or lottery, &c., or who takes tickets in any {lottery or|scheme." We have yet to learn that laws of this kind can be enforced in Europe, or the Australian colonies "or elsewhere." If that part of the Act which makes it punishable by fine or imprisonment to buy tickets in a sweep, or bet on a man or dog fight, or on a race whether of boat, man, or beast were rigidly enforced, in six months one-half of the New Zealand colonists would be professional informers and the other half in prison. The Act is too drastic, besides aiming at too much. If legitimate sweeps or consultations were authorised and protected by law in the same degree as in the case of the totalisator, the spirit of gambling would be controlled and guided into certain recognised channels, and if it were found that it increased beyond reasonable bounds, a very ready check could be placed upon it by a heavy stamp duty on the tickets or cards. The very instant thtt promoters found the game did not pay, consultations would disappear, and some new and as attractive a mode of squandering money take their place. We do not expect this Bill to pass the Legislative Assembly without some substantial alterations and amendments, and it is very probable that the Bill was allowed to pass the lower House with the hope it would be robbed of its fair proportions by the more august body the Legislative Council.