BOOKMAKERS AND THE LAW

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 18, 12 April 1927, Page 8

BOOKMAKERS AND THE LAW

IN three sejiarate centres of New Zealand “the big bookmaker” hgs been caught at his illegal occupation, convicted and fined. In fact there has been an epidemic of “catching” in this connection recently; but it will be noted that Auckland’s “big bookmaker” has not yet been apprehended. Every man about town knows that betting flourishes and that many thousands of pounds are waged with bookmakers in offices and in hotel bars on every day of almost every race meeting that is held in the Dominion. The police know it as well as anybody—or they should—and, consequently, they are targets for considerable criticism. But bookmakers are not so easy to catch. The big men in the game will take money for totalisator odds in hotels or in their offices, but only with known clients, and a stranger finds it difficult to place a bet unless he is properly introduced and recommended. A police officer has to be unknown, and to be uncommonly astute as well, to make a bet. And to catch a bookmaker is not always to convict him, for many people refuse to recognise betting as a crime, though the Legislature has it so. In one case in which a well-known Auckland operator was concerned, the Judge told the jury that, upon the evidence, the accused had clearly been carrying on the occupation of a bookmaker, and that unless they' disbelieved the evidence—and he held that there was no reason why they should—they could not find otherwise than that the accused was guilty. The jury returned in a comparatively short time with a verdict of not guilty, and the prisoner was discharged!

Only yesterday “the biggest bookmaker” of Palmerston North was charged with keeping a common gaming house. He was described by his counsel as “a malefactor by Act of Parliament,” carrying on a business which in another country would he lawful. “This is where he pays a tax,” observed the magistrate. “I am afraid he will have to pay £IOO and costs if he wants to carry on this business.” The fine was paid at once and the bookmaker went forth. Was there ever such a farce! The law is the law, and it should be administered. While magistrates swell the revenue with stiff fines and then jocularly bid the bookmakers “carry on,” and while the Commissioner of Police declares he “will not sanction the doing of wrong by members of tlie police force to please any person”—which means that be will not allow his men to enter hotels and make bets with bookmakers —the law will continue to be laughed at. If it is a laughable law, it is a foolish law and it ought to be repealed. If it is a good law,- it should be enforced.