The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY,- NOVEMBER 28, 1907. THE GAMING LAW

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 48, 28 November 1907, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY,- NOVEMBER 28, 1907. THE GAMING LAW

fHE lady in Butler's poetical romance ; ' Heard ; old cunning stagers ' Say fools for arguments use -wagers'. . O^tSlcl The wagering or gaming instinct is deepvK&&r seated in 'human nature... And though in y^ itself and under due restrictions it is-^- no violation of natural or divine law, the widespread aJbuse of it -in our time constitutes a moral and social problem of great and pressing difficulty. Our Parliament faced the problem in the dying days of the recent ses- ' sion. It was a- big task to undertake at such a time. But inspiration was found, as to one. grave part of the difficulty, in the drastic measures which have success-; fully coped with gambling dens beyond. the Tasman Sea., The Australian Acts were a lamp to the feet of our legislators. And. the measure which issued from their

high-pressure deliberations was, as the Attorney-General explained, ' a plainrworking - compromise Jbetween the three distinct- camps in -evidence on the gambling .question—namely 1 , -the camp, ihe 'bookmakers', "> camp, and "the Puritan camip '.' The debates on the subr ject were, in effeot, legislative specimens of the triangular duel in ' Midshipman Easy '..* - -

The new, measure is thus— and by, .the necessities of / the case— a- compromise. As such, it will fail to meet : with the full approval- of any of. the three hostile sections. But, 'on' the whole 'it is an acceptable measure/ in so far as it cuts, off some of the worst excrescences that ihaive grown upon the gaming- instinct among us. The measure, however, displays some of the defects of ' over-haste — a few inconsistencies, sundry failures of coordination in some of its minor provisions. But these will, no doubt, stand' so - revealed •in the working that " they will probably be' legislated out of it -in the neax future." In the" meantime, -street and tote-shop betting are slain by the amended Act ; gaming" houses are closed ; newspapers in New Zealand may no longer publish ' tips ' regarding horse-races, nor ' any information, advice, or suggestion" as to the prooable result" of any race ',~nor even, as an item of news, report the dividends paid on any race by the totalisator ; on premises registered as a factory no person may make, or offer to make, any bet or wager regarding any horse-race or other sports defined by -the Act ;• and the whole measure proceeds on the sound principle of quarantiningwagering on horses to those present at races. If it succeeds in this, the new measure will render an important service to the Dominion. The giving of a legal status to the bookmaker is a provision which may, in easily conceivable circumstances, tend to intensify the evils of gambling within the" restricted area of the race-

course. A great deal depends upon the interpretation and the working of this provision of the Act. On the whole, the Act is a commendable effort to grapple with a problem of menacing urgency. To all our readers, in fine, we commend in- this matter, the example of 'the popular actor,- William Terriss, as recorded in his biography by Arthur J: Smythe— to back only the ' little . filly called Common Sense, ridden by Tommy Lct-it-alone '. •