“FIND THE BALL”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 4

“FIND THE BALL”

A GAME OF CHANCE SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT P.A. AUCKLAND’, Dec. 2. Holding that the “ Find the Ball ” competition conducted by the Auckland Star was a game of chance, Mr Justice Blair in a judgment delivered .to-day dismissed the appeals by New Zealand Newspapers, Ltd., and Eric Vernon Dumbleton, managing-editor of the Auckland Star.

His Honor said the two appeals were from the decision of a magistrate at Auckland. In the first case, the appellant company, the publishers of the Star, was charged with using its premises as a common gaming house. In the second case, the managingeditor of the Star was charged with assisting New Zealand Newspapers, Ltd., in the management of a common gaming house. In the first case, the defendant company was fined £lO and in the second case the managingeditor was convicted, the question of penalty being reserved by the magistrate. His Honor said his view was that the “ find the ball ” scheme was clearly a scheme for betting. It could not be called a game of skill. Finding the exact spot on a picture in a newspaper where a football had appeared in the original photograph was a matter of the merest chance. The problem was not one of mathematics but pure guesswork. His Honor added that every entrant bet a sum of 6d with the promoter of the scheme and with all other entrants that he could guess the correct position of the ball. For No. 6 contest, there were 36.000 entrants and the share whifch went to the Heritage organisation was about £315, less a share of the cost of clerical work. The winner of the competition, if there was only one. would have received about £585 but, if there were more than one winner, each would share in the division of that prize. These considerations had a marked bearing on the question whether the scheme Avas a game of skill or a lottery which, ir. his Honor’s view, it undoubtedly, was.