THE GAMING LAW
(Otago Daily Times.)
An unusual course was adpoted by the Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives in recommending a petition for the liberalisation of the gaming legislation to the favourable consideration of the members. The practice in the past, where a petition related to a matter that was the subject of proposed legislation has been for the sessional committee to refrain from making any recommendations. Tne discussion that followed the presentation of the committee’s report on Tuesday afternoon proceeded along the lines that must now be familiar to those who are interested in the matter. It served to confirm the view that those who oppose the amendments of the Gaming Act that are provided for in the proposed legislation are really not very conversant with the sub ject. • If is a mere assumption that the effect of remitting totalisator investments to be telegraphed to a racecourse and of removing the prohibition on the publication of the amounts of totalisator dividends would be to increase the volume of betting. There is a strong element of absurdity about the suggestion that the publication of the amounts of dividends would lead to increased investments.
Mr Holland, Leader of the Labour Party, directed attention to the strange anomaly that, while papers pulished in New Zealand are forbidden by law to supply particulars as to amounts of dividens paid on New Zealand racecourses, Australian newspapers that contain this prohibited news may be purchased in the Dominion. The inconsistency of the law proceeds further than this. The amounts of the dividends are exhibited on the racecourses themselves where they are thus published to thousands of persons who record them in their racebooks, and tliey are also known, within a few minutes from the time the races are run, to practically all the bookmakers in the country, being communicated to them by their organisation. In circumstances such as these, it is a form of petty tyranny that decrees that the newspaper press, upon which
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Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1929, Page 2
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332THE GAMING LAW Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1929, Page 2
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