A LOTTERY

Hokitika Guardian, 18 October 1933, Page 6

A LOTTERY

MULTIPLICATION BUREAU.

FINED £5 AND COSTS.

(Per Press Association Copyright .)

AUCKLAND, October 13

Reserved judgment was given to-d y 'by Mr -Wyveirn Wilson, S.M., in the case of George Kennedy Elliot McLean, charged with managing a lottery known as the multiplication bureau. The magistrate said defendant- was the manager of a company called Multiple Systems, Ltd., which conducted what he might call a scheme of finance. Tile nature of the scheme was set out in a pamphlet entitled “the magic of multiplication,” which was put in as evidence.

After summarising the scheme, the magistrate said the evidence of Professor Scgar told him that assuming the bureau began with only one member, on completion of the sixteenth cycle of succession, the membership would have reached many millions.

The business term “commission"' n> .applied to moneys to be received by members w.as a misnomer. 'I ne money™ so promised might be more (Tightly designated prizes, to be paid 'o-n happening of future eiven ; t s . The present' scheme was quite sound economically, and if extended to the whole population it must cease for want of members and result in a debit balance. It seemed to him that only the first, or. early members -were likely to -receive any substantial (reward and that the possibility cf even " the first member receiving payments amounting to £ISOO per annum, were too remote to be worth,'consideration. .. ..

The receipt of s o called indirect;,. •cotpmiissicns and winnings of cash prizes was entirely ,a 'fortuitous happening, beyond members’ control and dependant upon quite unpredictable facts. It -depended upon ever changing circumstances, of the Lives, and upon the impulses of many -thousands of unknown persons. He thought it was a matter of chance and he was of the opinion that the scheme rs a lottery. Defendant wa§ fined £5 Is end costs-