174 RIDING 



remain 900 sovereigns to divide among 950 winning tickets. 

 It is a rule of the totalisator that if no one has backed the 

 winner the money is returned less the 10 per cent. 



The modus operandi for the investor is as simple as that 

 in vogue on English racecourses with those ready-money 

 gentlemen who advertise that * they will be found at the same 

 old place with the same old red hats and green umbrellas,' with 

 the advantage that those who work under the totalisator are 

 always there when wanted, and always solvent, which is not 

 the case with those who work under the hats and umbrellas. 

 All that you have to do is to pay in your sovereigns, and for 

 each one take away a ticket bearing the name of the race and 

 the number of the horse you wish to back. 



During the season 1889-90 over 573,0007. passed through 

 New Zealand totalisators in 224 days' racing. The largest 

 dividend ever paid was on a horse called Crunning at Hawke's 

 Bay, when the lucky investors of one sovereign secured a 

 dividend of 3067. 



The totalisator is worked by agreements between the club 

 and the proprietors of the machine, the usual arrangement 

 being for the racing club to give permission to the owners of 

 the totalisator to use it on paying a royalty of 8^ per cent, to 

 the club and retaining the other \\ per cent, of the 10 which 

 they are entitled to levy on the money passing through their 

 hands. The cost of a machine for 20 horses is 3757. 



In order further to facilitate what I may term innocuous 

 gambling, the race cards, which in the antipodes take the 

 form of little books, have in addition to the usual list of 

 runners with weights and colours and the conditions of the 

 race, a second list of runners with their numbers, each name 

 being separated by perforation, so that it can be readily torn 

 out, folded up, and put into a hat for a sweepstakes ; while 

 printed on the back of the list of runners is a memorandum 

 form, on which to fill in the value of the sweepstakes and the 

 horse drawn by each contributor, blanks being left for the 

 names of those who draw the three placed horses. 



