TOTALISATOR COMMISSION.
ALLEGED TOTE BETTING. A MINISTER'S EVIDENCE. Considerable interest is being taken in the mission of the New South Wales Totalisator Commissioners, at present in New Zealand for the purpose of acquiring information on the questicn of machine v. bookmaker. Some interesting evidence was taken druing the sitting of the commission at Auckland this week, among others being clergymen who had attended the Ellerslie meeting for the sake of experience. The Rev. Howard Elliott in the course of his evidence referred to tote touting as follow?: The Chairman: Does the operation of the tote not have a restrictive influence on betting? Witness: That brings me to something that I want to say. Inspector Cullen has informed you that there is no touting for tote betting. We know that there is, and that it goes on to a very great extent. Touts go round the factories and workshops, and gather sixpences and shillings from boys and girls earning only 10s or 15a per week. These boys and girls are not allowed by their parents to go to the races, and so readily support the tote tout. This kind of thing goes on extensively, and constitutes a grave danger in educating young people into gambling habits. The bookmakers' touts cannot do this openly under the existing law, but the tote tout can. The Chairman: The tout I, presume, then acts on commission, as it were, and goes to the course to invest the money?— Just so. Has the attention of the police not been called to this by your Association? —The police must be conversant with what is going on.
But Inspector Cullen says there is no tote touting. Is he not a reputable officer? —Unquestionably he js, but tote touting is not a statutory offence, and cases of the kind do not come within the police pervue.
Sub-Inspector Hendry, in a subsequent interview, stated that Mr Elliott quite evidently beileved what he had said, [and was obviously sincere. The police, however, did not know of such a state of things as Mr Elliott described. There was, of course, a certain amount of illegal betting by bookmakers still, and from time to time sufficient evidence was obtainable by the police to warrant a conviction for this breach of the law. But he was of opinion that it was highly improbable that touting of the kind referred to by Mr Elliott was countenanced by the cotalisator authorities. As a mere matter of business sjch a proceeding would not be worth while. It was far more likely (assuming Mr Elliott's information to be correct) that some speculative person gathered in these contributions on his own account, or that some bookmaker was illegally at work. Mr Elliott was quite mistaken in thinking that tote touting was not a statutory offence.
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King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 428, 6 January 1912, Page 5
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466TOTALISATOR COMMISSION. King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 428, 6 January 1912, Page 5
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