GAMBLING IS U.K'S LARGEST INDUSTRY

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5310, 24 January 1947, Page 3

GAMBLING IS U.K'S LARGEST INDUSTRY

£500,000.000 ANNUAiLY STREET BOOKIE A MAJQR FACTOR IN SOCIAL LIFE. Gambling has become the largest industry in Britain. In the last 12 ironths it has resulted in. £500,000,000 changing hands. ^ive hundred million pounds, or half the total of the U.S. loan to Britain. Three main sources •provide the stream of this gigantic financial turnover, which exceeds in amount such nation-wide staple industries as coal, cotton, agriculture and transport. They are football pools, totalisators and betting with bookmakers. This last is. estimated to account for half the total volume of betting. It does not mean just the big bookmaking firms, for these account only for a fraction of the business. Approximately £250,000,000, according to the Churches' Committe on Gambling, is wagered yearly with streetcorner bookmakers, small-time layers in factories, and minor operators in •big commei'cial houses. This is no mere guesswork. 'The street-comer bookmaker with his acceptance of threepenny, sixpenny, and shilling bets has heen a factor of British social life for deeades. Yet these transactions are against the law, because betting is only legal if it takes place on licensed courses or if it takes place on credit. Police in the Know One prominent ar.d v/ell-advertised London bookmaker, whose open credit business complies with the law and is well known in the most circumspect sporting circle^, still derives the biggest part of his income from illegal cash bets. For this purpose he maintains a small shop noar his more ornate, legal regular premises. The business is well known to the local police and patronised by many of them. Bnt this underground betting, widespread though it is, does not provide the chief target for the assaults of the Churches' Committee oi. Gambling. In its v/arnings and censures

are included bookmakers, but its main bombardment is directed against football pools and °'reyhound totalisators, for these, although not perhaps more worthy of censure, are more public and more exposed. Tht football -pools account for a turncver of £50,000,000 a year in amounts rang'ing from one shilling' upwards. Throughout the football season people numbering one in three of the adult population of Great Britain Lill in their chequered coupons and forecast the results of tho 44 major league matches, in combinations rang'ing from three to 14 results. Suceessful contestants receive sums rang'ing from 10s to £40,000. Church Versus "the Dogs." But the greatest attacks, by Churches, sociologists and publicists alike, are reserved for greyhound racing. This phenomenon, unxnown in England until '19'26, when ihe first greyhound traek was opened in Manchester, accounts fo-' £200, '300, '000 a year in totalisator bets alone. Democratic it certainly is, and it is this very democracy which arouses opposition. Greyhound racing kr.ows no barriers of class or income. I have seen a poorly dressed woman, having lost all her money by the sixth race, leave the raok and return in time for the eighth race — in hei stockinged feet. She had pledged hei shoes at a pawnship nearby in order to trv to retrieve her losses.

At the other end of the scale I have ^een a prominent alnd aristooratic ( member of Parliament nonthalantly placing bets in the "best" enclosure at £200 a time, race after race, and end the evening's racing by writing a cheque to the bookmaker. But "The Dogs" have also received their bad name by reason of the sharp practices worked by "wide boys." Today the National Greyhound Racing Club has eradicated many of their disruptable practices. Greyhour.ds niust he registered at birth and all their markings shown on the identity card which follows the-m aroundj they must be at the track two hours prior to racing so that they cannot be in-te-rfered 'with; and veterinary surg'eons inspect the runners hefore each race. Dcping Still Prevalent. Even so the "wide boys" find ways and means. One common practice is to buy the identity cards of dead greyhounds and attach them to puppies with similar markings. And doping, although more difficult, still goes on, Although "The Dogs" headed the list of proscripti-ons put forward to the Home Secretary by the British Council of Churehes' deputation, led by the Archbishop of Canterhury, it i^ only the most publicised aspect of the gambling phenomenon. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, casting around for likely victims of taxation to relieve the burden of income tax on the British public, would like to find a means of taxing all betting. In this quest he faces outsize diffi'culties. Half the difficulties have been overcome, because half the volume of betting to-day passes through -grey- . hounds totes and football pools. (The Government-sponsored horse racing totalisator handles only £14,000,000 a year, a mere flea-bite compared with the dog* takings. But taxation touches only the fringe of the potential goldmine. The totalisator retains by law only six per cent. of the -gross take. Ninetyfour per cfent. goes baok into circulation untapped by the Treasury. So with football pools. The promoter who pays su-per-tax on his 10 per cent. profit xepresents only 10 per cent. of the money staked. The rest of the fantastic sum is again untaxed. Effects of, Taxation. So these possible sources of re-venu.e being legal and therefore available to tax department scrutiny, can be tapped without diffiteulty. What of the

ers. and factory ager.ts? It is this factor which makes the Churches hesitant of a-dvocating taxation. They fear the result will be to drive an even larger volume gf betting underground as people .try to avoid paying' tax. What is the reason for fhis phenomenon which has grown so enormous within the space of 20 years and reached incredible proportions within the last TO ? What is this urge to g-amble which has singled out grey- . hound racetrack shares as the greateSt industrial speculation of the last 15 .years, and increased their quoted Stoclc Exchange value by 1600 per cent. ? Perhaps Njkolai Lenin provides the answer. He once observed that there would never he revolution in Britain as long as the British working man had his beer and his racing guide. Today the British working man Kas great difficulty in obtaining his heer, and what he does obtain is apt to ihe pretty thin. But his racing guide faces him in a dozen different forms on every nev/s stand.