PROHIBITING BETTING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 189, 31 July 1908, Page 3

PROHIBITING BETTING

New York, June 13. Governor Hughes, of New York, failing in the regular session of the State Legislature to secure the passage of a law prohibiting race-track gambling, convened the Legislature in s|K'cial session for a reconsideration of the subject, and has just had the satisfaction of signing the measures which carry out bis recommendations, though they were carried by a narrow majority. Betting on the races is now a felony in this State, whether wagers 'are made at the tracks or in the pool-rooms (the name applied to the places in which telegraphic reports of the results of the races are posted), and the penalty for its commiasioii is imprisonment for no more than a year without the option of paying a line. The amount of properly affected in this and other States by

the passage of the law is estimated at 81.000,000 dollars, not to mention tli> 21,000,000 dollars said to have been annually paid in salaries, admissions to tracks, railroad fares, and other expenditures incidental to the spoil. The horse-breeders of Kentucky alone employ 5,000 men on land worth 2,000,000 dollars! The race-tracks in the immediate neighbourhood of New York City has been the most important and best-

paying in the country, and oven if new centres of racing arc developed in other States in which the prejudice against gambling is not so strong, tlin money loss to tlie owners of these tracks will be immense. James B. Haggin. one of the most important breeders of racehorses in the countrv is so sure, that the new law will kill interest in racing that he announces that his 1.000,000 dollars stud is for sale. Other breeders are less pessimistic, hut most racing men apparently look upon the New York legislation' is nothing short- of ne calamity. The tracks affected will continue the present season without gambling features; the fixtures for the summer bavin* been made, in the expectation that the legislation urged hy the Governor woukl'V' defeated. _ . Other States in which racing, Willi its attendant gambling features, was once- a flourishing business, have enacted stringent anti-gambling laws wlik-Ii closed the tracks; so that there is now no racing in Illinois (in which State Chicago was once a great racing centre); i„ Missouri (in which Governor 1 oik, the Democratic reformer, closed the fel. Louis tracks in 1003); in Arkansas and Tennessee. Two months ago Congress prohibited betting at the Bcmuugs tra.-k in the district of Columbia, which lorthwith went out of business, and a Bill prohibiting the laying of wagers on Jiorso races in Louisiana " lls l n,s! * d , U "/ Lower House of the Legislature of lha State.