CALCUTTA SWEEP

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 998, 14 June 1930, Page 12

CALCUTTA SWEEP

BOGUS TICKETS SOLD IN AUSTRALIA HARVEST FOR SWINDLERS In recent years warnings have been issued in the Australian Press that chances in tho Royal Calcutta Turf Club sweep on the English Derby can only b© obtained through members of the club. Despite these warnings, many people have been defrauded again by swindlers posing as agents of the R.C.T.C., or, in some instances, merely as friends of the victims, comments a Melbourne writer. It is reported that in Tasmania, a man sold hundreds of bogus tickets at £1 each. In other States swindlers are said to have reaped rich harvests from unsuspecting people.

Mr. R. McKenna, the well-known shipper of horses to India, stated the other day that during a recent trip through the Riverina and northeastern Victoria, he met numerous acquaintances who had purchased “tickets” or numbers from a person in a big town in New South Wales. The man is said to have posed as the representative of the club’s agent in Sydney. Only Numbers Issued As a matter of fact, no tickets or result slips are issued in connection with the R.C.T.C. sweep. There are no agents in any part of the world, and the price is 15s 9d and not 20s. Most of the banks and leading business houses in India have representatives who are members of the R.C.T.C., and it is through these members that most of the numbers (not “tickets”) are obtained as a favour for friends and customers abroad.

Sporting people should remember that money sent direct to the R.C.T.C. for chances is always returned. Some years ago thousands of forged Calcutta sweep tickets were sold in London and the principal cities of Europe. As a result of this the R.C.T.C. decided to do away with tickets altogether, and to substitute numbers, which are furnished only to members in whose names the chances are taken. This year is not the first occasion on which Australians have been duped into accepting bogus interests in the Calcutta. The warning should be remembered by those people who desire to participate in the R.C.T.C. sweep next year.