The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1892.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 4011, 13 January 1892, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1892.

Amongst demoniacal inventions the totalisator ought to take first. place. It is in its operation so radically iniquitous that wo can understand the necessity (or it being protected by legislation. Were it not bolstered up by statute it would probably have been discarded as a gambling machine long ago. When we read, that during some highly respectable local race meoting, three thousand pounds are passed through the toblisator, we are

not to suppose that such an amount of capital as £3,000 was in existence amongst the visitors on the occasion. With very few exceptions the men

who frequent racecourses have a very limited supply of cash at their disposal and if all the money ata meeting were put into a hat," it would

probably only amount to seven or eigli', hundred pounds. Let us as?umo that a sum of£Boo is available for a two days'race gathering and let us see what becomes of it I On the first event .probably £3OO of it soes into the totalisator and £2GS 10s conies out a small sum of £B4los sticking to the machine, This little experience is repeated through perhaps twelve subsequent events with the following result,—put into the

machine £3,600, stuck to the machine £llß 10s. Now, if in the first instance the noble sportsmen, tho clever judges. Ilia sharp, not to be had, racing men had between them only £BOO, they absolutely allow £l5O of this amount to remain in the machine. More than half of all the money they bring to the races is absolutely taken from them I Is it possiblo to conceive a bigger sot of fools in any community than those who fancy they are winning money and yei allow-aMachine to take,more than half of all they possess 1 If a race meeting, only lasted four days a machine would lake every sixpence in the crowd, and make a fast prisoner of the total collection. Appar ently in these affairs the brains belong to the machine and not to the speculators, for tho former must win and the latter must lose. It is

not possible lo imagine anything eotler than a smart racing man, If be lakes £2O to a race meeting lih is compelled to give £lO of.it to ♦.lie machine, if he takes £lO lie has lo give five. The odds are always against him, and in favour of the machine, which slowly but surely mops up all the money which lie can beg, borrow, or steal. This totalisator business can hardly becalled gambling, because the chances in it are so unequal. It may on the face of it seem a fair thing, but in practice it is a silent pocket picker, The ivonder to us is that the public submit to bo fleeced in such a monstrous manner. They are foolish to gamble at all, but if they must indulge in this vice they are still more foolish if they don't see that they have a fair chance of getting their own again, Then there is the innocent visitor to a ouise. who thinks ho knows something about horses pd never dreams that half the eyentß are made up between horse 1

owners, How liko magiohis money disappears in the machine; lie is indeed a man to be pitied, There probably lißvnr will be honest racing in country districts again until this demoniacal invention is discountenanced by the repeal of the Aot which legalises it,