GAMING AMENDMENT BILL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 195, 7 November 1927, Page 8

GAMING AMENDMENT BILL

TO-MORROW night will be set aside in Parliament for the second reading of Sir George Hunter’s Gaming Amendment Bill, a measure that will prove, next to the Religious Exercises Bill, to be the most contentious introduced this session. According to its advocates, the Bill is to liberalise sport and shake off the shackles of hypocrisy; in the opinion of its opponents it is further to encourage gambling, which they declare to he “the curse of the country.” Briefly, the Bill proposes to re-establish three conditions which were formerly legal, but which subsequent legislation saw fit to abolish—betting with the totalisator by telegraph, the establishment of the double machine on the racecourse, and the publication of dividends. As to the first, there can be no doubt that facilities to bet by telegraph will enormously increase the gambling evil, which is already far too prevalent and which has a most disturbing effect on the sanity of both the industrial and social life of the country. There is no need to stress the consequences of gambling upon a community. These consequences are realised by the Government, even to the extent of prosecuting people for holding art unions and publishing crossword puzzles. That the same Government draws tremendous revenue from gambling on the racecourse is by the way—but that it should encourge further gambling further to swell this revenue is not “by the way.” In this case the honest duty of the Government is to express disapproval of telegraphic betting, even though this form of gambling will greatly increase its departmental revenue, as well as swell its returns from the totalisator. Also, there is no call for the return of the double machine. If a man wishes to back two horses in two different races, let him back the individual horse in each race—“all up” on the second if the first wins. The double machine will only make gambling easier and encourage further investments. One of the contentions of those who desire telegraphic betting is that it will suppress the bookmaker. The answer to this is that the Government could quite easily suppress the bookmaker if it so wished. Apparently it regards the bookmaker as a source of revenue to be tapped from time to time. The final point is that of publishing dividends. 'While there is racing and totalisator betting, there can be no objection to that; the amount of the dividend paid is one of the details of the race and an item of general interest even to those who do not bet. And in any ease, the telegraph wires flash the dividends to bookmakers and other interested parties all over the Dominion immediately they have appeared on the hoard of the racecourse. That is where the stupidity and hypocrisy of the present prohibition are illustrated.